


The Shape of the Sun

by blanketed_in_stars



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Period Typical Attitudes, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Swing Dancing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10985697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: With Alexander Pierce dead, a crumbling HYDRA sends the Winter Soldier back in time, hoping to head off disaster by having him kill Steve Rogers in 1943. The mission does not go according to plan.





	The Shape of the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Palebluedot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/gifts).



> This will eventually be a 3-parter for the wonderful [Audrey,](archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot) who didn't expect to get anything until January 1st! Unfortunately I have a horrible work ethic and I swear I'm starting to get some gray hairs, so I can't promise regular updates or even an end date, but here's the first bit. Basically I was afraid that if I didn't post something now, I would never post anything ever, especially because my summer's half booked and then I'll be abroad doing God knows what. So I'm holding myself accountable by copping out! Surprise.
> 
>  **UPDATE 1/10/2018** \- This WILL be updated! I am still plugging away at it, but I have several other balls in the air as well as two impending senior capstones. So it will just be a little while until I get part 2 finished, but it is already significantly underway. Bear with me :)

_It is history it should always be a little rough that way we know it is the truth._

—Peter Carey, _The True History of the Ned Kelley Gang_

———

 

The Asset can still feel the river’s grit under his nails, behind his ears, in the stiffness of his hair as it lies drying against his skin. They haven’t hosed him down yet. It isn’t his place to question that, but dimly, he wonders why.

There are several things they haven’t done, in fact. It hovers at the edge of his awareness, rough, a loose thread in an otherwise seamless pattern. But he stays silent, staring ahead at the concrete wall. This is a new place, farther underground than the bank vault. There’s no chair here. The one he’s chained to now is plain metal without the head vice. The Asset shifts, disliking the sensation of water trickling down his back beneath his armor.

Behind him, the door opens. The woman before the Asset doesn’t look away from him or relax her grip on her gun. “Did you hear from Pierce?”

“Pierce?” The newcomer’s footsteps stop just outside of the Asset’s field of vision. “Pierce is dead.”

There’s a moment of silence, then the woman swears. “How?”

“Doesn’t matter. Did you wipe him yet?”

“Yeah, but—come here.” A man, powerfully built, graying at the temples, comes into view. “Look,” the woman says when he stands beside her. “I’m not sure it worked right.”

They both frown at the Asset. The expression is the same on both of their faces: expectant, focused, mildly curious. It’s like someone is pulling on that loose thread, and all at once the Asset smells a metallic, salty tang, entirely different from the reek of the river water. He feels the stabbing pains in the soles of his feet. He hears, from his own mouth, the litany: _B-A-R-N-E-S—_

“Looks okay to me,” says the man. He comes forward.

“Don’t—”

The Asset watches as the man steps even closer, ignoring the woman, who wavers with her weapon, clearly unsure where to point it. His gaze snaps back to the man, now only a few feet away. Within arm’s reach, if he were unfettered. “Mission report,” the man says.

With difficulty, the Asset swallows the name still on his tongue, and lets muscle memory take over. “The mission escaped. I tried to find him in the river, but he must have made it to shore. Injuries sustained to the throat, ribs, and leg. Possibly the shoulder. All non-fatal.” He welcomes the numbness that comes with the words, even as he grinds the truth to dust between his teeth. He resists the urge to flex his fingers, to erase the feeling of stiff fabric in his grip, a dragging weight. He shakes his head to clear it.

The man seems to interpret this as regret at failure, which is partially and contradictorily correct. “See?” he says to the woman, turning to look at her; the Asset recognizes the tactical misstep but the man is unconcerned. “He’s fine.” He walks away from the Asset. “We’ve got to move him, though.”

“Says who?” The woman’s eyes narrow. “If Pierce is dead—”

“Says Ward,” the man tells her. His voice is brusque, clipped, and he pulls a piece of folded paper from his pocket and hands it to her.

She has to look away from the Asset to read it, and there’s a moment where it looks like she’ll refuse. Then, reluctantly, she lets her gun point away and takes the paper with her free hand. When she’s done reading, she purses her lips. “Sure,” she says, skepticism clear in her tone, “and who’s going to bring him there? Just the two of us?”

“I don’t think you realize how submissive he can be,” the man says, “especially after a wipe.” He gives the Asset another long, considering look. “But it won’t be us,” he says decisively. “There should be a guard along soon enough.”

As if on cue, the door behind the Asset bangs open loudly and suddenly enough that the woman jumps, and the Asset wrestles with his own instinct to flinch, react, pull a trigger, so that he betrays no response at all. The tramp of sturdy boots fills the room; a pair of hands reach around the Asset to release his wrists.

Even if he were inclined to struggle—though the man is right, the leftover electricity makes his reactions somewhat sluggish—the Asset doubts that he could. There are at least five people holding him, and when they pull him bodily from the chair, the unmistakeable barrel of a weapon pokes his back.

The woman, still watching from in front, her gun now holstered, says what the Asset is thinking. “Seems like a lot of guards for someone who’s supposed to be _submissive.”_

The man chuckles, and whatever he says next is lost in the squeal of rubber on concrete as he is yanked around, now facing the door, and marched through it. The gun doesn’t waver from its point between his shoulder blades; whoever is holding it presses it in more firmly to compensate for the rhythm of their walking. No one speaks.

The Asset knows it is not the first time this has happened to him: he has vague, flickering memories of other times, in other countries, with his hands dirty or bloody or clean. Always the vice-like grips, the pounding feet. And below those memories, so dimly that it’s more like an instinct than a recollection, the Asset remembers low lighting and men shouting, the clang of slamming doors. His feet hurt.

They bring him into a long, low room, more brightly lit than the halls. Most of the space is crammed with machinery, wires and boxes and gauges, which look eclectic and tangled to the Asset’s eyes. He is forced forward, and then he sees it: there is a chair nestled in the center.

His mind locks, freezes; his feet stutter. “Keep moving,” orders a woman to his left, and he does. They just wiped him, the Asset reminds himself, they won’t do it again—and this is the wrong kind of equipment. It looks older. But some parts also look new. He notices all of this with detachment, his breathing even, his pulse slow.

They stop him a few feet from the machines, and someone says, “Aarons, does this thing even work?” A few people chuckle.

“Think so, sir.” Behind the Asset, farther away, closer to the wall. “Kind of hard to tell with all the weird Swiss engineering, plus whatever else—”

“But it works?” asks the deeper voice of the graying man, who must have followed them from the other room. “We’ve got a schedule here.”

“Yes, sir.” Aarons hesitates. “It could take a—a few minutes to warm up.”

“Then get started.” The man walks forward, his footsteps thudding on the floor, and comes back into the Asset’s sight. He stands right in front of him, so that they’re facing each other with barely two feet between them. The grips on the Asset’s arms tighten. “командировка,” the man says.

The sense of detachment intensifies, a blanket dropping over everything except the man’s voice. The Asset gazes straight ahead.

“The mission,” the man goes on in English, “continues. Objective: kill.”

“If surrender is offered?” the Asset asks. He doesn’t mean to. The words intrude on his calm.

“Ignore it,” the man says. “Do or die, soldier.” Someone behind the Asset coughs, or maybe it’s a muffled gasp; the man glances to the side and then back to the Asset. “In fact…” He pulls something from his pocket. “Your location has been changed. When you exit this machine”—he indicates the mass of metal behind him with a jerk of his head—“your contact with HYDRA will be terminated. Upon completion of the mission, bite down on this.” He holds out his hand, with a small pill in his palm. After a moment’s pause, he says, “His _hand.”_

With a small noise, one of the Asset’s arms is freed. He takes the pill with his metal hand and places it in the tiny pocket on his shoulder, able to be torn with the teeth, reached with a twist of the head.

“Verbal confirmation,” the man says when he’s done.

“подтвержден,” the Asset replies. The syllables fit neatly in his mouth, at odds with the tension that still remains, jangling, below the surface: the chair, the chair. “Further parameters?”

The man shakes his head. “The usual. Avoid conspicuity unless necessary. No witnesses. Retain anonymity.”

The Asset nods. The man steps aside. Immediately there are hands on both arms again, propelling him forward, closer to the machine. It sends the tension flooding through his brain, shattering the numbness so that they are truly forcing his every step. He forces himself, too, against his will, because he has no will. He muscles the rebellion of his limbs into alignment, but he still trips on the step up to the chair.

The handlers have him so tightly under control that he can do nothing more than fall forward. For a minute his face is pressed to the cold metal of the step, twisted sideways, looking into the depths of the machine. He reads the words at an angle, blindly: STARK INDUSTRIES. There is a knee in the Asset’s back and a gun on his neck.

“Think we should wipe him again?” A nervous voice. “He’s not—”

“He’s fine.” Brusquely. “Come on. Get him up, strap him in.” The man snaps his fingers. “It’s the way it looks, he doesn’t like that. He’ll be fine once he’s in it.”

The Asset’s pulse is elevated now, but he doesn’t resist again. They shove him into the chair and pull bands across his chest, arms, and legs, made of some material that he doesn’t think he could break. He lets it all happen with his jaw clenched. The man is right. When the Asset can no longer see the chair—his head against the hard back of it, looking only forward—it grows easier to breathe.

The man steps in front of him again. “This machine,” he says, “will take you back in time. We’ve had people working on it since the forties. Seems fitting, doesn’t it, that it’ll be the thing to take you back? Two of the greatest developments in history, working together to change it.”

The Asset ignores most of this. Meaningless. He only has one question. “When?”

A small smile quirks the man’s mouth, but his eyes don’t change. “Nineteen forty-three,” he says. “And one of the perks of this machine is location homing—so it’ll send you right _where_ you need to be, too. So don’t look so blue.” He takes a step back. “You’re headed back to Brooklyn.”

The man speaks to someone to the side: “All clear.” He walks away.

The Asset hears the first woman, the one who held a gun on him, say, “Nice speech.”

“I think Pierce would have liked it,” says the man’s voice, “don’t you?”

Once again, her response is lost. A whirring noise drowns out everything else, and the metal of the machine grinds suddenly to life, folding out like wings and then coming forward. The Asset realizes what will happen just before the sides begin to close: his hands clench on the arms of the chair and a stronger feeling than before, untamed by the numbing electricity, blinds him. Then the cage is complete. The Asset can hear nothing from beyond the walls of steel, and all he sees is the shadowy outline of his own body, slipping in and out of focus with the blinking green and red LEDs that provide little more than the suggestion of light.

In the suddenly confined space, the Asset’s breathing is harsh and loud. He cannot move his arms. He is trembling—no. The machine, the chair, the walls, everything is vibrating, and the air is growing hot. There is a muted, low thrumming. It is all too close to the chair, to the sound of a helicopter before the jump. The sound grows to a roar that reminds him vividly of a train he does not remember ever having ridden. The Asset closes his eyes. He sees snow.

The roaring stops. At once, the air is calm and cool.

 

 

———

 

 

“What,” Steve says, “no girls?” He thinks this must be the first time in his life that he’s upset about having no one to make him feel awkward, even while being completely ignored. At least then he’d be able to pretend that this is just another night.

Bucky shrugs. “Seems a little mean,” he says, “if I’m just gonna be leaving tomorrow.”

And, God, if Bucky’s not taking an excuse to go dancing, then it really isn’t just another night. Steve swallows. “So where are we going, then?” He tries not to sound like he feels, which is that he’d rather go sulk on his own than do anything that’s just the two of them. It’s definitely a night for firsts.

“Nowhere special,” Bucky says. He sneaks a sideways glance at Steve, like he knows how low he feels, and when Steve catches him, he grins. “Cheer up, punk,” he says. “It’s just basic.” He reaches out and shoves Steve’s shoulder.

Steve lets the momentum push him away, so he’s walking in the gutter at the edge of the street. “Yeah,” he sighs. He sets his shoulders and straightens his spine as much as he can. Clearly Bucky won’t let him go home—and if he’s honest with himself, Steve would never leave Bucky alone. What a ridiculous mess. He snorts at himself and looks back at Bucky, who’s watching him thoughtfully. “What?”

Bucky chews on one lip. “Know you’re jealous,” he says.

The words hang there for a moment. “Am not,” Steve replies too late.

“You only look daggers at me every time I mention it. You only read the newspapers cover to cover. I’m not an idiot, you know.” Bucky sidles across the sidewalk and Steve dances sideways into the street; defeated, Bucky resumes walking along the side of the shops. “I know it cuts you up that you can’t go help.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve says, but he just can’t think of anything to say that he hasn’t muttered before. “Guess you gotta do twice as well over there,” he manages, “to make up for it.”

Bucky chuckles. “If I’m making up for you, it’ll have to be three times as well,” he says. “Damned if you don’t collect more scrap metal than anyone on the block.”

It makes Steve flush a little, but he can’t help thinking—it’s only because they won’t let him do anything else. It seems like he hardly does anything these days that isn’t aimed as a strike back against those 4Fs he keeps ripping up before he reaches the apartment.

They walk for a few minutes in silence, Steve going out of his way to stay a good two feet away from Bucky the whole time. Bucky doesn’t try to get close again, and Steve, selfishly, is glad. He goes where Bucky leads him and doesn’t ask questions—and then he realizes just where they are and squints at Bucky, who smiles, a soft and hopeful thing. Steve grins back, helpless.

He loves the pier. During the days it’s full of boats and working stiffs and enough heavy things to sink him to the bottom of the bay, but that doesn’t stop Steve from heading down in the sweltering summer heat to dip his feet in and draw what he sees. He likes it best, though, at night—like this—with the lights from the ferris wheel turning the black water blue and red in flashes. When he can get Bucky to come along, if he isn’t sick of the place from lugging sacks and barrels around for hours already, they buy hot dogs. The place is nearly deserted now, but Steve can see the spot where they always sit. Bucky flirts with the girls and Steve sketches his upturned, long-lashed eyes. It’s what they _do._

Steve averts his eyes. There’s a sudden tightness in his throat that he doesn’t want to think about. “I’m thinkin’,” he says, “tomorrow I’ll try that recruitment office in—”

“Christ,” Bucky says, “you really can’t wait to be gone, can you?” His smile has faded a little so it no longer really reaches his eyes. “Why don’t you just make sure Mrs. O’Reilly doesn’t break her hip this year, huh? Help Nancy with her homework. Can’t have everyone off fighting, there wouldn’t be anyone left to—”

It’s Steve’s turn to cut him off. “You’re not gonna change my mind by talking like that,” he says. He hates this, doesn’t want to argue anymore, but something in him is stuck and stubborn and it makes his jaw clench tight. “I’d give—I’d give _anything_ to—”

“To what?”

At the challenge, Steve finds himself struck dumb, wanting so much to say so many things but unable to find the words. He sneers at the knowing look on Bucky’s face. “What are we doin’ here anyways?” he demands, turning to stare out across the water.

“I dunno, Stevie,” Bucky sighs. “Thought it’d be a nice last night.”

The quiet defeat in Bucky’s voice makes Steve feel suddenly, terribly guilty, but he won’t take back what he said—it’s all true, and they both know it. “It’s not your last night,” he says instead, and God, even that sounds like an argument. He turns back to Bucky, trying to fix it. “It’s just basic, that’s ten weeks. You’ll be back before summer really hits.”

Bucky nods. “Guess that’s true. We’ll still have time to sit down here before the crowds figure it out, huh?”

“Yeah, and we’ll get some cotton candy,” Steve says, “you and your sweet tooth—”

“—and you’ll ride the Cyclone again, right?” Bucky asks. “For me?”

Steve huffs out a laugh, and they stand there, the joke dying between them as quickly as it began. He looks at Bucky and it hurts.

Like he feels it too, Bucky exhales sharply. “You wanna go home?” he asks.

It’s hard to tell what Bucky wants the answer to be. But Steve’s selfish tonight, so he nods, the ache in his throat all at once painfully strong.

Back in the apartment, it really does feel almost normal as they sit around quietly in the low light. Bucky sits by the window, his arm hanging out with a smoke dangling from his fingertips, keeping the air in the room clear for Steve. It doesn’t matter. The normal feeling is only on the surface. Steve reads a book and can’t focus, tries to sketch but nothing comes out right. Eventually he gives up and goes to bed. Bucky joins him a few minutes later, like he was just waiting for Steve to go first.

The twin bed too small for two bodies, too big for the little bedroom, and all that they can afford. Steve lies with Bucky behind him, listening to his breathing slow and deepen. He tries to match his own to the rhythm of it but all that happens is a feeling like a freight train rushing through his lungs. Steve rises from the bed and pads out of the room, not pausing in the door, not wanting to look.

He climbs out onto the fire escape and inhales the night, the city-smells and faint starlight struggling through the clouds, with his hands tight on the rail. How many times has he sat here at dawn, at twilight, on sunny afternoons, and drawn the view? Always, Bucky, behind him or beside him with a sly remark, leaning ever closer to the edge like he thinks he can fly.

It’s too dark to draw now. Steve shivers; the air hasn’t quite lost the winter chill yet, but at least he’s not coughing. He feels himself smile a little when he thinks of the names Bucky would call him if he saw him sitting out here—he worries like Steve’s ma used to, like he’s gotta make up for what she’s not here to say.

And then there he is, like he knows what Steve’s thinking. Bucky clambers out to stand beside Steve, close enough that the heat of his body reaches him even though they aren’t touching. “Damn,” he says, sucking in a breath, “you tryin’ to freeze out here?” When Steve laughs, Bucky frowns. “I say somethin’ funny?”

Steve shakes his head. “Nah, just—you’ve really got my number, don’t you?”

“And don’t you forget it.” Bucky knocks his shoulder into Steve’s. There’s a pause before he speaks again. “I meant what I said before, you know—if I come back and you're not here, I'll kill you myself.”

Bucky's gaze is dark and deep as the sky above, and Steve feels himself drowning again in all the things he doesn't know how to say. He forces a laugh. “And save the Germans the trouble?”

“That's not funny, Rogers.”

It's not funny at all. Steve stares down at the shadow of a cat in the street. “What do you want me to say?” he demands. “That I won't try to do everything I can? ’Cause that’s—”

“Say you'll take care of yourself.” There's a solid, earnest note in Bucky's voice, one Steve recognizes from every pressing hand and supporting shoulder but has only rarely heard aloud.

“’Course,” Steve says. “You know me.”

“Unfortunately.” Bucky smiles at him and sighs. “Gonna get any sleep tonight?”

“In a bit,” Steve says, and waves him on. When Bucky's back in the apartment—when the bedsprings creak and Steve knows he won't come back—he takes another deep breath. The cat is gone. Above, below, and all around him, the city feels impatient.

In the morning it takes Steve a minute to realize that Bucky is gone. He gets out of bed as fast as he can and trips over his own feet rushing out of the bedroom, then stops dead, his heart hammering away, staring at Bucky coming through the door.

“Bought some of those buns from the bakery I know you like,” Bucky says, oblivious, as he crosses over to Steve and shoves one paper-wrapped confection into his hand.

Steve looks at it with as small an appetite as he can ever remember having. “Thanks,” he says. His throat is dry. “For—for breakfast?” Bucky likes eggs when they can get them, cereal or toast when they can't. Never this sweet and sticky luxury. Steve narrows his eyes. “You gettin' soft on me?”

Bucky flushes. “Yeah,” he mumbles, “well.” He doesn't seem to mind when Steve puts his roll down to go get dressed; when Steve comes out again, he notices that Bucky’s barely touched his either.

Minutes crawl by. They don’t have to leave for almost three and a half hours in order to catch Bucky’s bus on time, by noon, and the clock hangs crooked over the door, drawing Steve’s eyes like a magnet. He feels like there’s something he should say, but everything that comes to mind— _I’ll miss you, be safe, don’t worry about me_ —sticks in his wooden throat. He can’t tell if it’s because it’s too trite or too true. Every so often Bucky will look over at him and take a breath like he wants to talk, but he never does, and they go back to their silence again.

At last, as one, they both stand up. Bucky goes to the bedroom and grabs his dad’s old kit-bag, which hangs loose and half-empty over his shoulder. They go out the door, Steve locking the apartment behind them, and down the stairs, still saying nothing. The air seems to have turned bitter and thick. It’s a nice day, sunny and warm, so the walk to the bus stop should be pleasant—but everything else aside, Steve aches, maybe from the chilly evening on the fire escape or the trek down to the pier before that. Maybe both. Maybe it’s just his body crying out that this is wrong.

They reach the bus stop right on time and join the crowd of other guys, some with dames, others with parents and kid brothers and sisters. Everyone is smiling. Steve feels sick.

Bucky gives him a bracing smile. “It really is just ten weeks, you know.”

“I know.” Steve smiles back. “Don’t forget to write, okay?”

“Scout’s honor,” Bucky says. For a moment he stares at the ground. “So what kind of mischief am I gonna have to pull you out of when I come back? What shit have you got planned for while I’m gone?”

Steve chuckles, but the truth is, there’s nothing planned at all. The future without Bucky—even ten weeks of it—is a blank slate. They haven’t been apart for most of what Steve can remember. When he got his eight-year-old ass beat up three blocks from home, Bucky was there. He howled and threw punches until the other kids ran off, and pulled Steve to his feet and walked him back. When Bucky’s favorite stray cat vanished, Steve watched him cry and held his hand. A few years later when Bucky’s girl left him for Charlie Speltzer, Steve offered to beat Charlie up, and Bucky laughed so hard at the idea that he stopped pining for a bit. And when Steve’s ma died, Bucky stayed with him, and knew when to make him eat and when to talk and when to just be there.

And now he’s leaving.

“Stupid,” Steve says, shaking his head, “but I haven’t thought of a single thing.”

“How about going out to dinner with Connie? You know, the girl who works at the pictures on Fifth?”

“Yeah, I know the one.” Steve shrugs. “Maybe. Think she’s got a thing for you, though.”

Bucky levels him with a reproving glare. “You keep talkin’ like that, you’ll be stuck with Mrs. O’Reilly.”

“Are you saying I should stop holding out for better odds, and just take what I can get?” Steve demands. “Besides, Mrs. O’Reilly’s not bad. Tells a better joke than half the girls we know.”

“Well, your odds are bound to get better,” Bucky says. Then he pales slightly, and swallows. “Look, Steve, I didn’t mean—”

“Just come back soon, all right?” Steve rushes. If he doesn’t say it all at once, he never will. “Don’t—don’t blow your foot off or anything. Ten weeks, then come back.” Miraculously, his voice stays steady. He’s already red in the face from how bare he’s laying himself; he doesn’t think he could stand it if he sounded as close to crying as he feels.

“I keep telling you,” Bucky replies, “I can’t leave you alone much longer than that, you’ll burn down the building.” Then the joke fades from his face and leaves behind, again, that earnest expression. “You be safe too, you hear?” He reaches out and grips Steve’s shoulder, hard, gives it a shake. “I’m not kidding.”

Steve savors the heavy weight of that hand. “Promise, Buck.” The bus pulls up, and people start to get on board around them. Words take an effort now, but Steve forces them out all the same. “See you, then.”

Bucky grins that wide, white grin he uses on girls and suspicious mothers. “See ya.” He wavers for a second, then pulls Steve roughly to him, clasps him for just a moment in a tight embrace. He lets go before Steve realizes what’s happening, picks up his kit, and climbs into the bus.

Craning his neck, Steve watches him pick a seat, exchanging a few words with the guy already sitting there. They both laugh. Steve’s chest constricts. Bucky leans across the other man to rap on the window, and waves. Steve waves back.

Bucky mouths something. It looks like _Go on home, Stevie._ When Steve makes a face, Bucky rolls his eyes.

The engine roars back to life and Steve waves along with the rest of the crowd, fighting a sudden, insane urge to blow kisses like a few of the dames are doing. When the bus rounds the corner and vanishes, everyone bursts into a kind of giddy, self-conscious laughter. They talk in too-loud voices clumped there on the sidewalk.

Steve stands apart from them all, feeling the loss in every one of his bones. After a second he turns on his heel and walks away without knowing quite where—only that he has to move, has to go somewhere that doesn’t smack of Bucky’s absence. That rules out their apartment, but it also precludes almost everywhere else. The whole city seems suddenly foreign.

Remembering his barbed, cruel suggestion from the night before, Steve eventually winds up staring at the recruitment office in the Bronx. Men stream in and out and look him up and down, and he recognizes the expression on their faces. He sets his jaw and walks in.

He’s got an enlistment form shoved in his pocket already, filled out a week or two ago; it’s a habit of his to carry one around like a good luck charm, not that it’s helped so far. On this one he’s Steve from Philadelphia, and he puffs out his chest as much as he can but the doctor with the stamps gives a little sigh and shakes his head. “No can do.” He stamps the form decisively. Steve must look as mutinous as he feels, because the doctor leans in, his voice abruptly grandfatherly. “There’s lots of ways to help out stateside, son.”

“I’m aware,” Steve says, and bites off anything worse. He puts his shirt back on and stalks outside again, past the waiting lines and encouraging girls, his embarrassment vastly outweighed by his anger. _It isn’t fair,_ he wants to shout, and he knows exactly what his ma would say to that: the only thing that’s fair in this world is that everyone, big and small, rich and poor, thinks that they have the shortest end of the stick ever given to man. Your worst enemy thinks he’s got it as bad as you do. Steve snorts and shakes his head at nothing.

He passes a group of men sitting outside a barbershop and ignores their sly looks as he fixes his hair, mussed from changing clothes, in the window. Then they seem to get distracted as a woman walks by; one of them whistles, and the rest start snickering. The woman says nothing, just lifts her chin and continues on her way, her mouth a tight line—Steve can see the red of her lipstick in the reflection.

The guys keep up a commentary as she gets further away, growing louder and louder to make sure she can still hear them. “Hey, doll,” one of them calls, and his friends chorus something rude enough that Steve turns to look at them. They keep going, having forgotten him entirely.

“Come on, guys,” he can’t resist saying at the next remark. “Really? Do you have to do that?”

About half of them swing their heads around in his direction. “Do what?” one of them asks, a hulk of a man with dark hair greased to perfect curls.

“She’s just walkin’,” Steve says. The guy stands, towering over him, and Steve glares up at him.

“Don’t hear her complaining,” the guy says. His friends laugh. “Why, you know her?”

“No,” Steve says, “I just—”

His next words, whatever they might have been—he’s not quite sure, still burning in the grip of his own bad temper—are lost when the man grabs him by the collar and yanks him into the alley next to the barber’s. The rest, to be honest, is predictable: they take turns hitting him, and he struggles back to his feet again and again, and grows familiar with the feeling of this particular scrap of ground hitting his spine.

Steve knows no one will come to his rescue, as deserted as this neighborhood is, and given the number of guys surrounding him. He doesn’t want to be rescued, either—each blow fuels the anger inside him and he tries to spit on his opponent, but it doesn’t work so well with a split lip. His nose is bleeding, his ribs hurt. He has the feeling a few more good punches will put him down for good. He’s high on it.

The next guy hits Steve so hard that he crumples face-first into the asphalt. He scrabbles with bloody knuckles, trying to get his arms beneath him so he can push himself upright, and feels a kick land along one side. _It isn’t fucking fair,_ he thinks again. It isn’t a fair fight. The fact just makes him more furious. It’s a selfish, ugly anger, but it spurs him back to his feet—and they’re waiting for him. He hears their loud laughter as he goes down again.

With his vision, for just a moment, whited out, Steve can’t see the group behind him, but he hears a blow land over the ringing in his ears. Someone groans, and someone else yells. A few seconds pass before Steve comprehends that these sounds aren’t coming from him. The next second a hand fists in his shirt and pulls him to his feet. “Are you—”

Something red-hot brushes Steve’s left shoulder with a high zinging noise, and the person pushes him down again. “What the—?” A woman’s voice, Steve guesses dimly, and then all further thoughts are driven clear out of his head as another bullet splinters the wood of a beaten-up stool sitting forgotten in the alley. Steve ducks instinctively.

After a second of relative calm, whoever has a death grip on his jacket yanks him to his feet again. Steve stumbles this time and steadies himself against the wall, and snatches his hand away when the person shouts. A bullet hits where his fingers were.

They run along the alley, keeping to the shadow in the lee of the barbershop. Steve catches a glimpse of a form silhouetted against the sun, standing on the roof. The long, thin shape of a gun is visible for a brief instant. His pulse thrums deep in his ears and drowns out everything—everything—and his breath sears his chest, and he wheezes—

“Go!” says a voice in his ear, and hands shove him forward despite his terror-frozen legs.

Steve notices in a fractured way that the latch on the gate in front of him, cutting off the alley halfway, has been shot—it hangs open, swinging free. He staggers through. “Go,” the person shouts again, “go, you bloody idiot!” So he does, each gasp painful, his shoulder on fire. At the end of the alley he cowers in the shadows and blinks, blank and uncomprehending, when someone shouts, “Go into the shop across the street!”

He focuses his gaze on the antique shop—an impossible distance. Miles and miles. His left hand is slick and slides when he tries to brace himself on the wall, leaving a red stain. “Shit,” he chokes, staring at it, “shit—”

“Over here!” cries a new voice, and a woman steps out of the antique shop carrying, of all things, a machine gun. Steve goggles; his brain feels too saturated with panic to take it in. She takes aim and fires—up, at whoever is on the roof. Jolted into action, Steve half-runs, half-falls forward into the street. He’s halfway across—aching, limping, somehow numb—when the woman with the gun topples, her last shot whizzing harmlessly through the air. Her empty, limp hand hitting the ground is vividly clear to Steve’s eyes, like he’s looking through a magnifying glass. He turns, horrified, unable to stop himself, back towards the alley, trying to see—

He glimpses a solidly built figure, but can’t see much more because of the glare on his left side, which seems to be coming off of his arm—some kind of armor there gleams in the sun—and which clutches the barrel of a gun. Steve stares, transfixed, at nothing.

And then someone, hurtling out of the alley, rams into him, drags him towards the antique shop, over the woman’s body and through the door. “Down,” they order in a sharp, flat, absolutely iron voice. Steve hits the floor. “Crawl towards the back.” He tries, but can’t quite; his left arm won’t support his weight. He scrabbles along one-handed, still numb and wide-eyed, everything too detailed, too clear. Suddenly feet thunder towards him, and about fifteen men stream past him—he notices their weapons and promptly forgets about it—and then, above the sound of rifle fire, a woman’s voice says, “He’s gone!”

Steve twists around to see. Through the thicket of legs from his position on the ground, he can make out a woman kneeling with her back to him, aiming a gun across the street at a blatantly empty roof. No more bullets are fired; Steve hears the rasp and choke of his labored breathing, overwhelming in the sudden silence.

 

———

 

To Steve it seems like he sits there for an hour, his ears ringing, before everyone springs into action again: in reality it can’t be more than a minute at most. The men closest to him grab him under the arms and haul him to his feet, marching him towards the back of the shop. Steve goes with them without resisting, too bewildered to do more than move his feet.

He notices, distractedly, that this is not an antique shop anymore. They go through the back room and enter into a maze of white hallways, taking so many turns that he couldn’t remember the way back if he tried. Then they get into an elevator, and standing in silence between all the uniforms, he realizes that they are underground already and going deeper. His pulse throbs painfully in his throat and it’s as if sound returns to the world all at once—the harshness of his breath, the smooth metallic sound of the elevator, the shifting men around him. Then the pain in his shoulder hits him and he twists his head to look—but he doesn’t get more than a glimpse of torn fabric and a deep red stain before the man next to him snaps, “Don’t move.”

Steve whips his head back to the front, then looks up at the guy. “Where are we going?” he demands. His voice sounds strange, too high and also rougher than usual. He hardly recognizes it.

There’s a moment of silence, and then someone behind Steve says, “You’ll see.”

The guy beside him jerks his head at Steve, who takes the hint and looks forward again. So they’re not going to tell him anything—well, he can figure a few things out for himself. The uniforms are military, or something very close. Every wall they’ve passed has been spotless, and the elevator doors in front of him are shiny metal, not quite what he would expect from someplace hidden underneath New York. It’s a well-organized thing, whatever it is, and probably—hopefully—part of the government. Though, he thinks, if he’s in trouble somehow—and it seems increasingly likely, from the men’s brusque attitudes, that he is—then maybe it’s worse that these guys have the power of law behind them. His mind goes wildly to his enlistment form, still in his back pocket, and even amid the fiery pain in his shoulder he has time to feel a new kind of panic. _Shit._

The elevator stops and Steve is propelled forward, a little less harshly than before. He keeps track this time as they go left, and then right, and then through a metal door. Inside the small room is a table with one chair on one side, and two on the other. The two men deposit Steve in the lone chair and go out. He sits, one hand clamped over his shoulder, and stares at the door, then at the mirror on the wall behind the table. He wonders who’s watching him.

Hesitantly he removes his hand. The fabric of his shirt is soaked with blood, and partially embedded in the wound, too—when he tugs on it to try to see more clearly, the pain intensifies suddenly and Steve hisses through clenched teeth.

The door opens again. A harried-looking woman in a nurse’s uniform comes in. “Leave that alone,” she tells him, setting her bag on the table. A moment later the man who told Steve not to move before carries in a fourth chair; the woman sits in it. She bends over Steve’s shoulder and inspects it, and he lets her, every muscle tense as her light fingers pick away the material of his shirt.

“You’re lucky,” she says after a moment. “The bullet only grazed your skin.” She starts pulling things out of the bag: a bottle, a roll of bandages, tweezers. “Take your shirt off.”

Steve looks away and peels off the shirt, trying to move his arm as little as possible and not quite succeeding. He sits back wearing only his undershirt. “Feels like more than a graze,” he says.

She clicks her tongue, but doesn’t answer, because through the door come two young men in matching suits. They perch on the edge of the two chairs facing him. One of them, carrying a clipboard, uncaps his pen. “State your name,” says the other.

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Steve replies, like a crazy parody of the enlistment office, and watches the guy with the clipboard write it down.

“And your address,” prompts the second man.

“Who are you guys?” Steve asks instead. “What is this?” He nods at the room, the door, the whole situation, careful to keep his left side still as the nurse dabs at his shoulder with a cotton pad.

The man with the clipboard shoots a sidelong look at his partner, who purses his lips. “Strategic Scientific Reserve,” he says flatly.

“Like the FBI?”

“A little.” The man repeats: “Your address?”

Steve hesitates. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Just answer the question, Mr. Rogers.”

“60 Water Street,” Steve says slowly, “apartment 7C. Brooklyn.”

The man nods. “Mr. Rogers,” he says, “can you tell me what happened out there? From the beginning.”

Steve lets out a slow breath. “I don’t—” He breaks off in a stifled curse as the nurse douses his wound in liquid from the bottle, setting the area stinging. “I don’t know,” he says, “honest, I have no idea.”

“What do you remember?”

Looking into the man’s impassive face, Steve knows he’s not going to get any answers until he talks. So he talks. “I was—in the alley. Someone shot at me, someone else pushed me out of the way—I don’t know who. We ran further down the alley and then—they told me, the person who pushed me, they told me to run across the street.” It’s all still in front of Steve’s eyes in bright, garish colors; saying it aloud makes his pulse spike like he’s actually living it again. “That woman with the gun covered me, and then I—I made it.” He twists his hands in his lap. The words don’t sound as awful as it was.

There’s a long silence while the man with the clipboard writes it all down, making notes that seem to be much more detailed than what Steve said. At last he nods at his partner, a sharp, decisive movement.

The partner shoots off the next question right away. “Do you know the identity of the shooter?”

“No,” Steve says. “I’ve never seen him before.”

“Him?”

“Well—” Steve frowns. “I didn’t get a good look, but whoever it was seemed pretty solidly built.”

The guy stifles a snort and pointedly looks Steve up and down.

The interrogation drags on and on from there, becoming something Steve would expect to find in one of Bucky’s mystery novels. They ask him about his politics, about his family, and at one point the man asks flat-out whether Steve has ever engaged in espionage. It’s humiliating, or it would be if the nurse weren’t picking at his shoulder the whole time. As it is, it just pisses him off.

Fortunately, about five seconds before Steve finally loses his temper, the door opens again and the two guys jump up and file out without another word. In comes a man, older, wearing a suit and carrying a gun at his hip. Steve’s first impression of his face is a coiled spring, probably because his jaw is clamped so tightly shut. His brow juts out, too, so that he looks livid, and Steve sits up straighter, ignoring the fresh complaint from his shoulder and the breath of annoyance from the nurse.

The man settles into the empty chair and surveys Steve for a few seconds from under that thunderhead of a brow. “Mr. Rogers,” he says at last, “do you know what the Strategic Scientific Reserve is?”

“No,” Steve says, and adds a little mutinously, “sir.”

“We’re the ones who are going to win this war,” the man tells him.

“I haven’t heard of you.”

“No,” the man says, “you wouldn’t have. But it’s crucial to our efforts that you tell us everything you know about what happened today—even something you think isn’t very important.” He skewers Steve with a single-minded stare, like he’s trying to draw the information out of him with his eyes alone.

Steve meets his gaze. “I wasn’t lying before,” he says. “I don’t have a clue what just happened to me. But I’m getting a little fed up with everyone treating me like I was the one with the gun.”

The man shakes his head. “If you were the criminal here, you’d know,” he says, “and we sure as hell wouldn’t be patching you up.” He inclines his head at the nurse at Steve’s side. Again, there is silence. At some cue invisible to Steve, the man dusts off his hands on his trousers, gets up, and walks out.

Steve turns his head, looking at the nurse, who keeps her eyes fixed on her work. “Can you tell me anything?” he asks, knowing he’s still being watched, and what the answer will be.

Predictably, she shakes her head and reaches for the bandages. When she’s done, she gathers her things back into the bag and leaves, and Steve is alone. He stares at the walls, at the mirror, at the bare, bright ceiling light. He doesn’t want to sit still. His shoulder hurts and he doesn’t want to look suspicious—but his nerves are jangling even though nothing at all is happening.

It’s in that state that he nearly topples out of his chair when the door opens two minutes later. A woman comes in—not the nurse. Her hair was probably perfectly done up earlier, but now it’s a little mussed, and her no-nonsense skirt and blouse are full of grit. There are runs in her stockings and smears of blood on her hands: it looks like she got into a fight with the kind of mangy alley-cat that Bucky likes to feed. Her lipstick alone remains an immaculate dark red that tugs faintly at something in Steve’s memory.

She sits down across from him. “I’m Agent Carter,” she says.

English accent, Steve notes, even as he doffs a cap he isn’t wearing. “Ma’am.” He surveys her with suspicion, sure he’s about to be grilled one more time.

Like she knows what he expects, Agent Carter smiles faintly. “At this moment Agents Dooley and Harris are investigating the truth of what you’ve told them. If it all checks out, you’ll be free to go. If it’s not, you won’t like what happens next.” She places both hands on the table. “I’m telling you this because I believe in fairness.”

“And you want me to say whatever it is you think I’m keeping secret,” Steve guesses, leaning forward and wincing. “Well, ma’am, like I said—”

“That shooter,” Agent Carter says, “was highly skilled. Only the best snipers in our armed forces have that kind of training. In the past three hours, SSR agents have been combing the city to apprehend him, but he appears to have vanished without a trace: he knows how to hide. And I’m sure you noticed the metal casing on his arm, some kind of fitted armor. We don’t have that technology.”

She stops talking, and Steve waits for her to continue, but it looks like she’s expecting him to speak. “So?” he says eventually.

She sighs. “So, all of this points to a foreign-trained specialist with a background in undercover work, possibly adept at disguising himself, and with advantages that mean he outmatches the majority of our soldiers.”

Steve frowns. “What’s someone like that doing in Brooklyn?”

“Precisely, Mr. Rogers.” Agent Carter fixes him with a dark brown gaze. “If you were indeed telling the truth before, then we have another dilemma as well—for some unknown reason, you are being targeted by an assassin.”

It makes Steve’s blood run cold to hear it stated so blandly. “An assassin,” he repeats, feeling a little of the numbness return to his fingers.

Agent Carter nods. “With probable Axis training.”

“A—a German assassin?”

“From the little we’ve seen of his capabilities, it’s certainly a possibility.”

Steve sits back in his chair. The hard wooden back of it rams into his shoulder and sends a shock of pain through half his body, intensifying the sensation of complete and utter bewilderment. “Why me?” he demands.

“As you’ve said you have no idea, I don’t have any more of an answer than you.” Carter blinks sympathetically. “It may be—a mistake of some kind, a miscalculation. A confusion of targets.”

“You’re saying they might be trying to kill someone else?” When Carter nods, Steve laughs once. “That’s not real reassuring.”

She shrugs. After a moment, she clasps her hands together. When she speaks it’s with an abruptly businesslike tone. “We’ll keep you here for the night,” she tells Steve, “and assuming that your statements are verified, you will return to your apartment in the morning. Unfortunately, as you’re the only known connection to a dangerous man who is still at large, you won’t quite be free to do as you please.” She pauses, seeming almost reluctant. “Your living quarters will have to be placed under surveillance, and I’m afraid you will be under house arrest until further notice.”

Steve stares at her. A few dozen responses flash through his mind, each ruder and less helpful than the last. Finally he just says, “How long is that?”

Carter spreads her hands. “That’s not something I have any way of knowing. I understand this is an inconvenience—”

“It sure is,” Steve retorts. He isn’t sure if it’s unfair to snap like this or not: all he knows is that he’s exhausted, and in pain, and still breathless with leftover anxiety, and he doesn’t like the idea of spending the foreseeable future with government mooks breathing down his neck. “What am I supposed to do for work? How am I gonna eat?”

“You currently work at the general store near your apartment, yes?”

“Yeah.” Steve lifts his chin. “And I do some drawing, you know, for people who want it.”

Carter ignores this last bit. “We’ll match your salary for the duration of the time you’re unable to work.”

“And what about when my roommate comes back?”

Carter frowns slightly. “Mr. Barnes?”

Steve nods. “When Bucky comes back from basic, is he gonna have to stay at home too?”

She gives a long, slow sigh, looking thoughtful. “I don’t have the authority to tell you that,” she says at last, “but I imagine it would depend on any developments that take place in the coming weeks.” Bracing her hands on the table, it looks like Carter is about to get up, and then she relaxes and hands him a handkerchief. “Here. You’ve blood all over your face and I doubt anyone will let you take a shower tonight.”

Dubious, Steve takes it. He mops his nose gingerly. The blood is half-dried by now, and he can’t tell just how much there is.

“Why were you in that alley in the first place?” Carter asks after a moment. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Steve does mind—it’s more than a little embarrassing—but she’s the first person he feels has been honest with him through this whole disaster, so he figures he owes her something. “I was fighting,” he tells her.

“Yes,” she says, “I know, I saw that—but why?”

“Because—” Steve breaks off and lowers the handkerchief. “What do you mean, you saw that?”

“I mean that I pulled at least three men off of you,” Carter replies. She watches him, serene and unruffled.

It comes back to Steve now: _What the—?_ He’d forgotten, in everything that came after, that it had sounded like a woman. That certainly hadn’t been the most important thing at the time. He feels himself flush. “Look, ma’am—”

Carter’s nostrils flare. “Please,” she says, “I’ve just saved your life. If you’re going to be embarrassed about that, you needn’t ‘ma’am’ me.”

“But I—” Steve shakes his head. “Well.” He goes back to dabbing at his nose, sure now that although it’s very sore, it isn’t broken. “I was only fighting,” he can’t resist saying, “because those guys were bein’ real unfriendly to this dame—I mean, this lady—uh, woman—”

At that, Carter smiles, sharp and flinty-eyed. “I heard them,” she says coolly. “And I rather think that I could have taken them on myself and defended my own honor, had I been so inclined.” Steve stares, and she tilts her head. “I’m sure you were very gallant, though.”

Steve shuts up.

After Agent Carter leaves, two men come in—the same who pinned his arms to his sides before and frog-marched him around—and escort him out. They’re less forceful this time, but just as indifferent, and Steve is glad when they reach the place, he’s informed, where he’ll be spending the night. It’s clearly meant for people being held under suspicious circumstances, and he hopes that the reason he’s here is just because there’s nowhere else to put him. Or maybe—Steve tries not to think about it—maybe he’s here for his own protection.

Regardless, the clang of the door as it shuts makes him feel it’s more likely that he’s here because they still haven’t ruled him out as a threat. As if he’s to blame for nearly being killed. He sits on the thin mattress and looks at the toilet bowl and sink, which stare back, and then he lays down, facing upwards. The walls are white, high, and bare. It comes to him that it’s been nearly four hours since he last saw the sun.

It’ll be going down now, sinking behind the apartments and making the clouds catch fire. Steve thinks about how the low glare comes in through the windows, which have no curtains, and how it fills the whole apartment with a glow that’s so hot and bright it could be alive. He knows that sight so well that his mind fills in the details—the record playing softly, books piled haphazard on the floor by the couch, Bucky lounging against the counter in his shirtsleeves.

A pang of sadness hits Steve, forcefully and without warning. All at once he feels the exhaustion, the tension in his limbs, and he covers his face with shaking fingers. He’s been on edge this whole time—ready to defend himself, or at least to yell himself hoarse—but now all the fight goes out of him. He pictures, again, Bucky in their apartment, the setting sun catching on his jaw and in his hair. He doesn’t think he’s ever missed anyone as much as he misses Bucky now.

When at last he falls asleep—after an admittedly nice dinner of chicken and potatoes, usually something he only gets on Sundays—Steve isn’t really surprised that he dreams of Bucky, too. He knows it isn’t real, somehow, but he still feels a measure of relief walking into the movie theater and seeing that familiar broad-shouldered form in the back row.

Without moving, Steve’s sitting beside him. He doesn’t turn to look, but their arms touch, and it steadies him—he smiles.

“Where’s Connie?” Bucky asks.

“She had a bus to catch,” Steve replies. On the screen, the newsreel plays, showing a grainy view of an empty alley, a busted gate. “Shouldn’t you be gone, too?”

Bucky chuckles, soft and low. “I am gone, Stevie.”

“You’re here,” Steve argues, and punches Bucky in the arm. It hurts his knuckles, and then he turns to look at last and finds his hand stuck to Bucky’s shoulder, unable to pull free. He tugs—the hard surface doesn’t let him move an inch—and then he sees that it’s metal, gleaming too brightly for the dark theater.

As if to comfort him, Bucky reaches out and embraces Steve, reaches his normal arm around him. It’s then that Steve feels the pain in his own shoulder—Bucky’s fingers piercing flesh, digging in—

Steve nearly falls off of his bunk. He rolls the other way and hits the wall, but it takes the weight off his injured shoulder, which sears deep beneath the skin. He twists his head and pulls the collar of his shirt aside to look at it, but the bandage is white, pristine. There’s no clock in his cell, but it feels like hours pass before Steve falls asleep again.

They don’t give him breakfast the next morning, but shuttle him straight back to Brooklyn shortly after dawn, in a nondescript automobile with two equally nondescript men in uniform. There’s no conversation on the way: Steve doesn’t mind. When they pull up outside his apartment building, he looks up and sees Mrs. O’Reilly hanging out of the window. He looks away quickly. They walk slowly up to the seventh floor, with Steve going as fast as he can, even though it makes him breathless. He doesn’t miss the appraising glances from the men when he has to stop on the third landing, and again on the sixth. His whole body twangs from yesterday, more than just the usual general aches and sense of fatigue.

The apartment door is open when they reach it. Steve walks in ahead of the men—he doesn’t want to think of them as bodyguards—and finds a scene of absolute calm. He’s not sure what he expected, maybe people rifling through the bookshelf and checking between the couch cushions, tipping over the mattress in the bedroom to see if anything has been hidden underneath. There’s none of that. The apartment is sunny, and quiet, and just as he left it. It’s like a loud wind has been blowing in Steve’s ears, only noticeable now that it’s stopped.

In the kitchen, Agent Carter stands with her back to the counter, bracing her weight on the heels of her hands. She comes forward when Steve walks in. “We’ve changed your locks,” she says with an apologetic smile, and hands him a key.

Steve pockets it. “You really think a lock’s gonna stop that guy?”

“Not really,” she admits. “But there are guards posted around the clock, so if he shows up we’ll know, and we’ll take him in.” When Steve automatically looks around, she shakes her head. “Covert guards. The theory is that if he doesn’t know you’re being watched, he’s more likely to—”

“—try and kill me?”

Carter gives an evasive little nod. “These guards are well-trained. We’re confident they’ll be able to apprehend him before any harm is done.”

Steve meets her gaze. “And what if they can’t?”

She doesn’t flinch, but stares right back. “They can.”

It’s not at all the answer he’s looking for. But then Carter comes even closer and hands him a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “This is for you,” she says, and her eyes flick to the men still hovering near the door, so quickly that Steve almost thinks he’s imagined it. But the press of her hands makes it clear: _open it when you’re alone._

“Thanks,” Steve says, and he hears the question in his own voice.

Carter ignores it, lifting her chin. “I’d tell you to get in touch if you need anything,” she says, “but we’ll know.”

Steve has to chuckle at that, and he follows her towards the door. “Thanks,” he says again, “you know—for everything.” It seems a little odd to say it, because the last twelve hours have been some of the most uncomfortable, confusing, and frustrating of his life, but she saved him in that alley. He won’t forget that.

She turns back to him. “You’re welcome, Mr. Rogers—but I rather think we’ll be seeing each other again.”

When she’s gone, and the guards with her, Steve goes to the window and looks down into the street. He watches until the car pulls away, then goes back to the counter where the package sits. He tears the paper and opens the box with a kitchen knife—and stands frozen, staring down at the shiny black revolver.

Steve actually does know how to fire a gun, having worked for a few different paranoid men over the years, but it feels like an invasion to have one here in the apartment. Like all the horrible things that have happened—the attack, but also saying goodbye to Bucky, and being left behind—have become tangible in this piece of hard metal. Steve gathers his courage and reaches into the box, places his hand against the gun. It’s cold.

He closes the flaps of the box again; his eyesight is poor enough, it would be a miracle if he hit the target instead of an innocent bystander. Then he realizes that something has fluttered out of the box: a small piece of paper, now lying on the floor.

Steve bends down and picks it up. Carter’s handwriting is small and even. _This is unorthodox and unsolicited,_ she has written, _not to mention illegal, but you ought to at least have a chance._

 

———

 

It turns out that house arrest is about as fun as Steve had imagined, which is to say dead boring. He spends two weeks reading every book Bucky owns, because they’re the only ones Steve hasn’t looked at himself, and then he goes and checks on Mrs. O’Reilly, remembering Bucky’s request.

“What’s Mr. Wu got to say about you missing work?” she asks when she answers the door, peering at him through her cataracts.

“I’m—between jobs,” Steve says evasively. “Don’t worry, I’m not starving for now,” he rushes, because she’s frowning. “I got somethin’ worked out.”

She lets him in, and her cat, Eleanor, twines around Steve’s ankles. “Sure must be hard on you anyhow,” she says, “your boy Barnes being gone.”

Steve shrugs. “Yeah, well.”

Mrs. O’Reilly _hmphs_ and beckons him farther in with an imperious jerk of her head. “Tell me, what was all that hubbub about a fortnight ago?” she asks. “I woke up in the dead of night and I could’ve sworn there was a whole company of soldiers marching in and out of your apartment.” She sits down at the little table, with Steve opposite. “And then in the morning you got out of that automobile with those strange people.”

Steve hesitates, cursing himself for not having thought of some kind of story yet to cover for the government agents. “It was somethin’ about Bucky,” he invents wildly. “His—uh, he wanted me to…” He trails off, uncertain.

But Mrs. O’Reilly saves him from further fumbling by nodding sagely. “I thought it might,” she says. “That boy is always up to no good.”

It’s something she’s said before, both in and out of Bucky’s hearing, and it makes Steve laugh. “My ma thought so, too,” he says. “And between you and me, I don’t envy whoever’s in charge of him now.”

She chuckles. Then, shifting, she asks Steve, “Have you been reading the papers?”

Steve frowns. “Not—”

“I only ask,” she cuts him off, “because I read about what happened in the Bronx, and—”

“What happened in the Bronx?” Steve asks, his heart in his throat.

She gives him a slightly disapproving look. “That lunatic with the gun! In broad daylight!” She shakes her head. “I ask you!”

“Yeah,” Steve says, “I did hear about that.” He settles back into his chair, hoping he doesn’t look as tense as he feels. It’s the same sort of shock he got upon seeing the gun. “Why?”

“You didn’t hear anything else?” she asks hopefully. “More than what was in that article?”

“Which article?”

Mrs. O’Reilly scoffs. “The only one they printed, the day after! You’d think the public would have a right to know what’s happening in our own city, but everything’s about the fair, there’s nothing at all about our safety. You know,” she continues, suddenly intense, “I thought that article said there’d been somebody shot. And I knew you were out and about what with seeing Barnes off—are you sure you didn’t see—”

Steve gets to his feet so quickly that he almost knocks his chair over. “I’m sorry,” he rushes into Mrs. O’Reilly’s surprised silence. “I just remembered—I’ve gotta—” And, unable to think of an excuse, he hurries out of her apartment and back into his own, leaving Eleanor mewing in distaste.

He doesn’t visit again in the next two months, which results in a lot of hiding, as she goes in and out more often than Steve had previously realized.

And then Steve gets the letter from Bucky, which is too long, and which makes Steve suspicious before he reads a word. _Punk—_ he writes, _the drill sergeant’s got a voice like an alley cat so really you don’t gotta be jealous at all, it’s just like home._ In typical Bucky fashion, he dances around for a page and a half before finally coming out and saying that he’s in a special training program, that he’s going to be a sergeant, and that he won’t be home for another six weeks.

It doesn’t make Steve any happier, to say the least. There’s just nothing to do; the people who are supposedly watching him are completely invisible, and Agent Carter only comes by once a week if he’s lucky, and that’s just for a minute or two, to “see how he’s getting on.” Steve can’t really come up with a way to spend the time, or an excuse for his reclusiveness. The longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to imagine heading over to Mrs. O’Reilly and apologizing, or even going to see any of the other tenants, who have no doubt heard from her that Steve Rogers is impolite and apparently permanently out of work. What’s more, Steve can hardly blame her. He has a hard time explaining, even to himself, why he left so rudely—and why he hasn’t been back since.

The initial reluctance is easy—Steve hates deflecting what he knows is just honest curiosity and heartfelt concern; worse, he likes Mrs. O’Reilly, and doesn’t want to lie to her. But it was more than that. Her talk of the attack—the Event, as Steve thinks of it sometimes—brought back the fear. The sense of a target painted square between his shoulder blades.

Steve doesn’t like to think about it like this, but there’s no other way he knows to make it sound better: he was worried, in that kitchen, with the cat curled around his feet, that the man, whoever and whatever he is, would shoot through the window and that someone else would die. Not him, that wasn’t what frightened Steve—it was the thought that red would suddenly blossom over Mrs. O’Reilly’s floral-patterned dress, a shot meant for him. Even thinking of it hypothetically, unwillingly, in the solitude of his own apartment, Steve reacts, sucking in a breath and jerking backward in his chair. The horror of it—even imagined—is awful.

He doesn’t like to think about it like this, though, because more than anything he hates the idea of someone dying for him, and he hates the fact that it’s possible. He’s not a hero, he hasn’t done anything, he can’t even _enlist._ He still has that last 4F from the day of the attack, for some reason, hasn’t been able to get rid of it yet, and there’s a spot of blood on it somehow. It sits at the bottom of his clothes drawer like a gory secret, and right now, he can feel it laughing at him.

And then one day there’s a knock on his door. Steve opens it, surprised, to see a small man standing in the hall. He must be safe, otherwise he would have been stopped before he entered the building. “Hi,” Steve says.

“Hello,” the man replies in a soft voice. “My name is Abraham Erskine. May I come in?”

 

———

 

“I heard Dr. Erskine came to see you,” Agent Carter says a week later by way of hello. “What did he want?”

Steve blinks at her, shutting the door and trying not to look too owlish. “I couldn’t tell,” he says. “He didn’t say much about himself, just asked a lot of questions.”

“Like what?” She’s already seated herself at Steve’s table, her hands clasped, looking up at him expectantly.

Slowly, Steve lowers himself into the chair across from her. “He asked how I was, he wanted to know how I was dealing with the—with what happened.”

“And what did you tell him?”

Steve inclines his head at the apartment around them. “I told him I was bored to flinders but otherwise just fine. Then he asked me if there was something I'd rather be doing.”

Like she senses what he's thinking, Carter narrows her eyes. “And?”

“Well—” Steve sighs. “I said I'd rather work, and then he asked if I'd rather fight, and he started rattling off all—uh—all the fake names I've used when I've tried to enlist.”

Steve doesn't know what he was expecting, maybe a sneer or stiff disapproval, but Carter doesn't even laugh. She nods. She looks down at the table. “Would you rather fight?” she asks.

It's different from the way Erskine asked it—that had felt like a test, but this feels honest. Steve rolls his answer around in his head for a second before he responds. “Yeah,” he says, “I would.”

“But that's not what you told him,” Carter guesses.

She's right. Steve shakes his head. “I don't like this,” he says, waving his hand at the whole setup, “but I think I have to get to the bottom of it now. I don't want to leave it unfinished, you know? I guess it feels like running away.”

Now Carter's smiling, just a little. “How are you?” she asks. It’s like she’s just arrived, like they haven’t just had a whole conversation.

Again, it feels different from Erskine's version of the question. “I'm good,” Steve tells her. He really is. Probably because he hasn't done anything more strenuous than take the stairs, slowly, from one floor of the building to another—he hasn't breathed anyone's smoke or walked through the freezing spring rain—he’s feeling healthier than he can remember feeling in a long while. Sure, he still can't sit straight or see too clearly, but it's as if he has energy enough to make up for that. There are days when he's so restless, he thinks he might be a match for Bucky, who has been known to cover half the borough in an afternoon.

“I thought you were bored,” Carter quips.

“It's not so bad,” Steve says easily, though it is, really, pretty awful.

Carter raises her eyebrows.

“Okay, it is bad,” Steve admits. “But it's not forever, right? I mean, eventually you’ll either get him or he’ll stop trying.” He doesn’t say the third possibility: that the assassin will be successful. It seems almost pointless. If Steve’s dead, he can’t be bored.

It looks like Carter isn’t fooled by his nonchalance. She purses her lips—but otherwise she ignores it.

Into the silence, Steve says, “How come you have to ask me what Dr. Erskine wanted? I thought you knew everything, isn’t that the whole point?”

“Dr. Erskine,” Carter begins, and then sighs. “He’s a brilliant man. He’s working on a—a project, and I think he’s considering you for it.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asks. “You make it sound like it’s a position as a lab rat.”

Carter laughs.

There’s something about it that gives Steve pause. “Am I right?”

“In a way.” Carter shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I know you want to know more, but it’s really quite confidential, and I’m afraid I’m not the one who decides if you’re allowed to know.” She says it briskly, almost like a snub, but she still doesn’t get up from the table. When she does leave, Steve goes back to his quiet existence, hanging somewhere between frustration at being kept in the dark and anticipation at the thought that he might have something to do soon. But neither Carter nor Erskine visits again for the next several weeks.

And then Steve looks around and realizes that it’s nearly July. Sixteen weeks—a lifetime—come and gone. It’s with a jolt that he wakes up and thinks, staring at the ceiling, that Bucky will be back today. Maybe he’s already in the city. Just like that, Steve is sitting up, getting dressed so fast that he loses his balance. And then, of course, he has to sit at the table and wait, because he can’t leave the apartment.

The sound of birds comes in through the window. There are mostly pigeons and crows in the city, but today they sound beautiful. Steve thinks how strange it is that they haven’t spent an afternoon in Central Park yet this year—haven’t dipped their toes in the water at the pier. His chest feels tight and full: excitement, so good and strong that he doesn’t know what to do with it. God, he wants to see Bucky, just see him.

And then he hears footsteps on the stairs and nearly gets hit in the face with the door as it swings open. Bucky doesn’t look surprised to see Steve waiting there, and he grins. “You been standin’ there for sixteen weeks?”

“Like a dog,” Steve says, drinking him in. The square cut of his jaw, the crinkle of his eyes. It’s like no time has passed at all, even as it still feels like a million years—even the smell of him is the same, soap and sun and old smokes. He can’t look away.

“Can I come in?” Bucky asks.

“What?” Steve realizes he’s staring, blocking the door, and scoots aside. Bucky brings in his kit bag and drops it on the couch. Then he turns around and strides over to Steve and hugs him, so quick and hard that it hurts. Something loosens in Steve’s chest and he thinks he could cry, he’s so relieved. Like a piece of him has been missing and he didn’t notice till just now. “You don’t gotta carry on like that,” Steve teases when they pull back.

Bucky rolls his eyes and drags him into the bright light of the little kitchen window. “Lemme get a look at you, punk.” He squints. “You been eatin’? You look skinnier than last time.” But it’s only a halfhearted jibe; when Bucky says it, all his words get pulled out long and he just keeps grinning, too wide to talk right.

“You’re frettin’ like your ma.”

“Can’t I worry about my best friend?”

“Well, I’m fine.” Steve can’t stop smiling, either. “And—and you? How are you? Are you tired?”

“Nah.” Bucky lets go of his shoulder and settles into his spot against the counter. “You wanna go somewhere tonight? Tell you what, we’ll go to Cracciola’s, we haven’t been there in at least a year.”

“Yeah, ‘cause we don’t have any money.”

“My treat,” Bucky promises.

“Can’t we just stay in?”

Bucky’s brow furrows. “Come on, Stevie, it’s my first night back. Don’t worry about the money.”

Steve chews on his lip. He’s left the attack out of every letter he’s sent—it was hard to find the words. And he knows Bucky, knows he worries—even two seconds after he walks through the door, he worries—and he couldn’t bring himself to make him anxious when there’s nothing either of them can do. But now he still can’t figure out what to say.

After a moment, Bucky crosses his arms, not scowling but almost there. He frowns around the apartment. “And why does it look like you haven’t left the whole time I’ve been gone, anyway?” he demands.

Steve gazes at him, takes a breath. He has to fight not to laugh, just a little. “‘Cause I haven’t,” he says slowly. “There was, uh, something that happened. The day you left. And I’ve kinda been under house arrest ever since.”

“You what?” Bucky’s eyes snap back to him. “What the hell happened?”

Steve imagines saying it: _Someone tried to kill me._ He can’t predict how Bucky would react to that, what his face would do, and he doesn’t want to find out. So he shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t _matter?”_ Bucky raises his eyebrows. “Steve, that’s bullsh—”

“It’s taken care of,” Steve insists. “There’s government folks and they just—they just want me to stay put for now.”

Bucky levels Steve with a hard gaze. “Just tell me, did you do something or did someone do something to you?”

“I didn’t do anything, honest to God.”

“Yeah, right.” Bucky shakes his head, but he doesn’t seem mad now, just bewildered. “Bet they finally got you for the enlistment forms.”

“They didn’t!” Steve protests.

“Whatever you say.”

“Look.” Steve catches his wrist as Bucky edges past him out of the tiny kitchen. “I’ll tell you later, okay? I gotta think of—how to say it.”

Honesty, of course, does the trick. Bucky looks at him and Steve sees that the frustration, the sudden chill in the apartment, was only ever care. “Sure, Stevie,” Bucky says like he always has: ever since they were kids.

It’s better after that, if only because they switch to talking about other things. Basic is old news—they covered it thoroughly in letters—and Steve is a little out of touch with current events, given his isolation, but they can dream, in that funny, driven way that comes with rarely having the money to realize any of it. So they talk about summer.

“Can’t believe it’s almost July,” Bucky says for the fifth time in an hour, looking out the window at the darkening street. “I swear, if we don’t go dancing soon I’ll forget how.”

“You? Please. You were born dancing.”

Bucky turns back to Steve. “When you get outta this mess, we’re gonna go, and you’re not gonna sit on the wall the whole time, you hear?” He points a commanding finger. “You’re gonna dance proper.” When Steve makes a face, he smiles. “You can’t fool me. I know you like the music, you just gotta get over bein’ shy.”

“I’m not shy,” Steve scoffs, and really, he doesn’t think he is. “Gotta get a girl to look at me first, that’s all.”

Bucky looks at him and gives a put-upon sigh, and it should hurt that he doesn’t deny it, but he’s still smiling with his whole face, so it’s all right, really.

A few hours later, when Steve’s stomach gives a rumble loud enough to be mistaken for a passing train, he laughs and gets up to make dinner—and Bucky shakes his head. “None of that,” he says. “Didn’t I say we were going out?”

“Buck—”

“No.” In three long strides Bucky’s thrown Steve’s coat to him and grabbed his own; shrugging it on, he says, “I know you don’t wanna go out and you’re worried about gettin’ caught, but I’ll take the blame. You can say I forced you.”

Steve looks reproachfully down at the coat in his hand. “You are forcing me.”

“See? It’s not even a lie.” Bucky marches over and takes the coat, holding it out. “Now, Rogers. You’re starving, I’m starving, let’s get this show on the road.” When Steve hesitates he adds, “And I don’t wanna hear anything else about the money, either.”

Reluctantly, but with an undeniable lifting in his heart, Steve sticks his arms into his coat. “How are we gonna get out without being stopped?” he asks, more grumpily than he feels.

“Well, where do they watch you from?”

“Uh.” Steve frowns. He hasn’t actually seen any of the agents outright since he first came back to the apartment, though he thinks he’s glimpsed some of them in the street, looking down from the window, or in the lobby downstairs. “Good question.”

Bucky snorts. “Guess we gotta take the front door, then.”

Steve balks at the door of the apartment, with Bucky already in the hall. “Are you kidding?”

“Not a bit.” Bucky snickers at the look on his face. “C’mon.”

Steve follows him. He hates it because it’s wrong, because it’s dangerous, because he could die and so could other people—but he’s always been helpless where Bucky is concerned. He doesn’t think he could say no—and stick to it—if he tried.

No one stops them when they walk out the door of the lobby and into the street. It sends a wonderful shiver down Steve’s spine: the sudden open feeling, the rank city air, the warm breeze. Yet he looks around instinctively, not really wanting to trust it. After a two months inside, the noise is a lot to handle.

“I’ve got you covered,” Bucky says quietly, not missing anything. He bumps his shoulder into Steve’s, just like the last time they walked here at night.

And just like that time, they walk mostly in silence. Steve’s not surprised to find that Bucky’s steering them toward Cracciola’s. He’s happy, even, because it feels normal and good, even if everything that moves in the shadows makes him jump. He wonders how long he’s going to feel hunted like this—and then he looks at Bucky, forces a grin, and stops wondering.

They get a table in the back of the restaurant, which is crowded enough to let Steve forget for a moment that they’re going to be caught. No one could find them in this place. Like he can read Steve’s thoughts, Bucky gazes across the table at him, mouth pulled up in half a smile.

“What?” Steve demands, when their drinks have arrived and Bucky is still watching him.

“Nothin’,” Bucky says. “just thinkin’—” Then he glances behind Steve and his smile grows. “Don’t,” he rushes when Steve turns to look. “A dame,” he explains, “real pretty, just walked in. If I weren’t here with you—” He shrugs. “Anyway, you must’ve done a number on someone to be this twitchy.”

“I told you, I didn’t do anything,” Steve says, a pit in his stomach. And then, because he just has to fall into every trap set for him, he looks over his shoulder. The woman in question is drinking from her glass, her face turned away and hidden behind dark curls. He looks back around to see that Bucky’s no longer smiling. “Now what?”

Bucky leans in across the table. “You okay, Stevie?”

“Huh?” Steve frowns. “Yeah, Buck, I’m… you know.” He shrugs. “I’m a hell of a lot better now.”

As always, Bucky senses it when Steve deflects, and he responds by settling back on a sneer. “You must’ve killed someone, I swear.”

Unbidden, the sight of the woman from the antique shop flashes behind Steve’s eyes, the empty curve of her upturned hand against the pavement. He flinches.

Bucky sees. “Stevie?” he says again, soft, gentle. The sneer is gone and his eyes are big and bright in the glow of the lamps. “What happened?”

Steve sucks in a breath against the block in his chest. “The day you left,” he says, as he did before, and forces himself on. “That afternoon, I got into a fight—just a scrap in an alley with some guys.” He doesn’t look at Bucky because he knows the expression on his face so well that he doesn’t have to: pursed lips, scrunched nose, a gaze that says _again?_ “And then someone was shooting at me, some maniac with weird armor, and he killed a woman and then he vanished.” Steve finishes it all in one breath, staring at the table. His heart is pounding like he’s there all over again; God, he’s sick of this terror, and it rushes up in his throat like a flood he didn’t know was trapped inside him. Thickly, he swallows. More words spill out. “And then some government division interrogated me to try and figure out why—”

“Yeah, why—?”

“—and we still don’t know. But he might try again, so.” Steve waves a hand and then holds it to his face for a second, until he can open his eyes without them burning.

Bucky is silent for a long time. Their food comes. “And you let me take you out of the apartment?”

Steve keeps watching the tablecloth. “You forced me,” he says, and it’s unfair and true at the same time.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “but this is—”

“I couldn’t say it, Bucky.” Steve looks up at him. “I mean, how do you—how do you talk about something like that? Just out of the blue? And I was so happy to see you.” He realizes that the look on Bucky’s face—the way he’s pressing his mouth into a line, the tension in his jaw—isn’t only angry, but something else as well. Maybe it’s sad. There’s wetness in his eyes, too. “God, don’t do that,” Steve begs. It sets a fierce pain in the core of him. “Don’t. I’m good. It was months ago,” he says. “I barely think about it anymore.”

“Don’t you lie to me.” The words are whip-sharp. Bucky blinks his eyes dry, and they blaze blue.

Steve scowls. “Well, I knew you’d—”

“Knew I’d what, care?” Bucky looks like he wants to slap the table, but he just grips his fork in one white-knuckled hand. “Christ, you’re so dumb, always tryin’ to go it alone. You know you don’t have to, right?”

This is Bucky. Caring, like he says, and so much that he seems to hurt with it—and he’s never done anything else. Steve knows that. He remembers the day of his ma’s funeral, a strong hand on his shoulder. Relief under the bitter tang of grief: he tastes it again. “I know,” he says. “Sorry.”

With a long, slow breath, Bucky shakes his head. Steve sees the moment when he decides to forgive, at least for now. “Only you could get yourself shot at a million miles away from the war,” he says. His eyes still bear a trace of darkness. “It’s a hell of a job, keeping you safe—I should know. Sure hope those government mooks are up to it.”

After that, though the dinner is somehow not ruined, they talk less. Steve feels like Bucky is watching him closely the whole time, though it could just be the woman who’s sitting behind him. When they go home, Bucky pays, as he said he would, and they both walk faster than normal.

The apartment is strange to come back to, having barely left it in sixteen weeks, a mixture of comfort and suffocation. But it’s lighter now, with Bucky here.

“I shouldn’t’ve got mad,” Bucky says later. He’s sitting on the bed, bare-chested, shadowy in the moonlight from the window.

Steve pauses in the act of unhooking his suspenders, letting them hang down as he turns to look at Bucky. “What?”

Bucky offers up a rueful smile. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if it were me. What I would’ve said.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says. It is. In the dark, with the quiet between them, he’s nothing more than tired. “I would’ve wanted to know. Maybe I should’ve told you.” When Bucky opens his mouth, he rushes on. “I don’t wanna fight about it,” he says. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

There’s a pause, and then Bucky nods. “Me too, pal.” He leans back on the heels of his hands. “And the guy didn’t get you, either. S’pose that’s important.”

“He actually did, a little,” Steve admits, then winces—stupid, he knows how it sounds—and adds hastily, “but I’m fine.”

But Bucky’s already sitting up straight and tense. “What? Where?”

“Just my shoulder,” Steve says, gesturing with his other hand.

“Let me see.” Bucky stands and takes the one step that brings him across the small space until he’s right next to Steve.

Sighing, Steve undoes a few buttons and pushes his shirt to one side. In the daytime the scar is a livid, dark red, but now it’s silver: a ridge barely two inches long just past the edge of his collarbone. “It missed everything important,” Steve says, and remembers the nurse’s words. “Just a graze, honest.”

With a grip that’s startlingly firm, Bucky grasps Steve’s shoulder. His fingers press into the skin and Steve sees in his wrist the cords of muscle, built from years at the docks and now months training to fight. He could be holding on much more tightly. But his hand is, in fact, gentle, despite its strength.

When Steve looks up, Bucky’s face is stark in the blue half-light. “He really could’ve killed you,” he says.

The words are a shock. They land palpably in Steve’s ears and make his heart pound—he doesn’t know why, exactly, but it isn’t from fear. “Buck, I said I’m _fine.”_ His expression is still bare as bone. “You listening to me? Bucky?”

And Bucky crushes Steve to him again, like he did at the bus stop and earlier in the doorway. Steve stands frozen, not expecting any of it, the embrace or the way Bucky clutches at him, and especially not the swell of his chest and its tremble as he breathes in sharp and holds it. “When I go away,” Bucky says, and stops short for a second. “When they ship me out,” he continues, a strange new darkness to his tone, “you stay safe, all right? You don’t do anything stupid, and you don’t go looking for trouble like you used to.” Steve wants to protest that he sure as hell didn’t look for this, and that he can take care of himself anyway, but Bucky gives him a shake, still holding him tight. “You hear?”

Faced with the bleak, urgent need of his voice, all Steve can do is nod.

They’re halfway through breakfast the next morning when there’s a knock on the door. Steve gets up to answer it, hardly thinking—and freezes when he sees Agent Carter standing in the hall. “Hi,” he says, very conscious of the fact that he’s still in his shirtsleeves. “Uh—come in.”

She steps into the apartment and Bucky nearly turns the rickety table over in his hurry to stand up. “Miss,” he begins, and then stops, frozen, just as Steve was, except there’s an indignant expression spreading over his face.

Carter watches it happen with a look that Steve can’t quite parse. “Sergeant Barnes,” she says by way of greeting, and her tone is nothing but polite, if a little pointed.

“You,” Bucky says, staring. “You were at the restaurant.” He flushes immediately.

Steve looks in embarrassed fascination to Carter, who smiles. “What restaurant?”

Bucky blinks at her and looks at Steve. “She was the dame sitting behind you,” he says. “She—hang on, who the h—who are you, anyway?”

“Agent Carter,” she says. “I’m with the Strategic Scientific Reserve, and I’m one of the people in charge of making sure we catch whoever is targeting your friend Mr. Rogers. Which, incidentally,” she adds, “would be a _hell_ of a lot easier if he stayed where he’s supposed to be.”

It’s funny, really, the struggle between surprise, respect, guilt, and irritation playing itself out behind Bucky’s eyes. “You followed us,” he says at last. The accusation is clear in his voice.

“Yes.” Carter lifts her chin.

But Bucky doesn’t seem to have a response. Maybe he expected her to deny it, maybe he expected her to get mad; Steve can’t tell. “Well,” is all he says.

After a long, measured look, Carter folds her arms. “I must say, I expected a man with such a winning reputation from his commanding officer to have slightly better judgment concerning his best friend’s safety.” Bucky flinches like he’s been slapped and his glance cuts to Steve, and then away again. “What exactly did you think you would do if—”

“Hey,” Steve interrupts, “I didn’t even tell him what happened until—”

“Stay out of it, Steve,” Bucky says. He’s gazing at Carter like he’s a little afraid.

“What, don’t I get an opinion?”

“No,” they snap in unison.

Steve scowls. “What are you gonna do, then, glare at each other until one of you falls over?” He shakes his head. “It was my choice to leave last night, and it was stupid, but I haven’t seen so much as a shadow for sixteen weeks and as far as I know we’re nowhere nearer to catchin’ anyone. So I wanted a little fresh air, sue me.” In the back of his mind he knows he could stand to be a little more humble, but he doesn’t like the flayed-open look on Bucky’s face. He wants to shoulder it.

Carter finally turns to him. “What if there had been another attack?” she demands, and her words are quiet, but they cut. “Do you have any idea how much more vulnerable you are on the streets? It may not look like it, but we have to assume that that man—or any man, we don’t know—could strike at any moment. We don’t know if he cares about civilians. Are you comfortable putting them at risk?”

It’s like Mrs. O’Reilly’s apartment all over again. Carter says _them,_ but all Steve hears is _Bucky._ And didn’t he think about that, last night as they left? Shame burns his cheeks. He glances at Bucky, who offers him a supportive wince. Steve squares his shoulders, or tries to. “You’re right,” he says. It sticks in his throat, but he says it.

She leaves a minute later, having made her point, and Bucky turns to Steve at once. “I shouldn’t have made you go out,” Bucky says with some bluster.

“You didn’t,” Steve insists. “You didn’t force me or anything, no matter what you wanted to say. It’s my fault.” He stares at Bucky, daring him to deny it. The silence stretches on.

But all the remorse in the world can’t change the fact that they screwed up—and Steve’s only half-surprised when Bucky gets his orders two weeks later. He wonders if the quick turnaround is due to Carter, trying to prevent another escape attempt, and then he decides it doesn’t matter, because Bucky’s leaving again, and this is the real thing.

Bucky spends half of the day before he ships out cleaning, of all things, and after dinner he leans over to Steve, who is staring at the pages of H.G. Wells without taking in a word. “You wanna dance?” he says.

“We can’t,” Steve says, blinking around at him. “We can’t go out—”

“I didn’t say anything about goin’ out.” Bucky grins. “I said, do you wanna dance?”

Steve frowns. If there’s anything he’s learned, it’s to be wary when Bucky wears that wide, I’m-charming-and-I-know-it smile. “Why?” he asks.

“If you help me get this couch out of the way, you’ll see.”

So they shuffle the thing off to one side, and end up putting it right up against the wall in order to make enough room—a concept that Bucky apparently has a very clear idea of, but which he won’t share with Steve. Then he ambles over to the record player and makes a show of hiding exactly what he’s doing.

When _Puttin’ On the Ritz_ starts playing at a high volume, Steve laughs from where he’s sitting on the arm of the couch. “You’re kidding.”

“Hell, no,” Bucky says, loudly enough to be heard over the music, and turns around with a ridiculous dancing shuffle of his feet. “Gotta get in the mood, right?” There’s a knock on the door. “Just in time.”

Steve is lost then in a whirl of dresses and shiny buttons as at least six or seven people come bursting into the apartment. He recognizes Connie Parker and her friend Bonnie, and one guy that Bucky works with at the docks. They’re all laughing and they start dancing at once—like it’s a club, like the record is a live band. It’s such an abrupt change that Steve grins in spite of his surprise.

Bucky half-shouts to be heard from across the room. “I figure if we can’t make it to the Cyclone or a club, this is second-best, right?”

Steve knows he’s talking about that last night before he went to basic, the plans they had made to have a grand old time when Bucky got back. And he remembers wishing that they had gone dancing that night, so that he didn’t have to think about what was coming. _Be careful what you wish for,_ Steve’s ma always used to tell him, _you just might get it._

When one of the girls, who tells him her name is Louise, tries to get him to dance, he agrees. He even has fun for a while, losing himself in the music and unable to spare much attention for wallowing with so many bodies crowded close. Their apartment really isn’t made to be stuffed to the brim like this.

Someone new arrives, bringing drinks, and Louise goes to get some with her friend, leaving Steve to take up his old spot on the edge of the room. Bucky is dancing with Connie now—Steve feels a kind of smugness seeing the way she watches him, didn’t he say she had eyes for him weeks and weeks ago?—and the song is fast. As he steps in turn and spins her with that rough-and-tumble grace he’s always had, Steve is captivated and can’t say why. He’s seen Bucky dance before—they taught each other half of what they know, even. But there’s something in the twist of Bucky’s hips, the quick, light touch of his hands, the delight of his smile.

Everyone leaves after a couple hours, and as the door shuts on the last pair, the record is still playing the last few bars of lively sax. Bucky tugs Steve back out into the cleared living room and twirls him around once, twice, three times, and then stops abruptly. “You okay?” he demands, his face close and worried.

“Yeah,” Steve says, but it comes out breathy. He realizes how hard he’s leaning on Bucky and comes back to himself a little—he’s winded, he needs to sit down. But he doesn’t want to let go.

“Come on.” Bucky steers Steve to the couch and deposits him there, then flops down heavily beside him. “Some party, huh? You like it?”

“It was the kicks, Buck.” Steve grins at him. “Wasn’t my party, though. You looked like you were havin’ fun.”

“Connie’s great,” Bucky says, nodding. “She invited almost everyone, got the word out. Didn’t even look at me funny for throwing such a big bash.”

Steve snorts. “No kidding.”

“What do you mean?”

It makes something in Steve’s stomach tighten to say it. “She’s got it bad for you, clearly. What, you didn’t see how she was starin’ at you all night?”

Bucky waves an untroubled hand. “Nah, she’s just a good friend, there in a pinch—” He rolls his eyes at Steve’s expression. “Honest, Rogers!” He looks away.

They’re silent for a minute or two, and the song switches to something slow, the singer’s voice spreading over the room like honey. Steve’s thoughts turn sweet. He itches to draw the way Bucky looks right now, flushed from dancing with his hair sticking to his temples, the collar of his shirt open and his eyes half-closed, dead beat. He wants to do more than draw him, he wants to touch him, to press his fingers to Bucky’s smiling mouth.

And Steve’s no idiot. He doesn’t need to put a name to this feeling to know that he shouldn’t feel it, or to know that he wants to anyway. Bucky turns to look at him with a tender blue-gray gaze and Steve’s heart skips a beat in his chest, different from the way it’s always done, a little more off-balance now than before.

“Guess this is it,” Bucky says, quiet.

The heat that’s been spreading through Steve’s body dissipates so quickly that he actually feels goosebumps on his skin. The flutter of his heart turns leaden and sinks to rest, heavy and dark, in the pit of his stomach. _This is what?_ he doesn’t say. He knows. “Yeah.”

Bucky’s eyes flick away and then back to Steve, like he does when he’s gearing up to do something stupid. Steve’s seen that look before—usually along with a sly grin that says he knows full well it’s stupid and doesn’t care. But there’s no grin anymore. “Stevie,” Bucky says, “you gonna be all right when I’m gone?”

He was right to look nervous; this is the dumbest question Steve’s ever heard. Of course not. “Are you jokin’?” Steve glares at him. “Am _I_ gonna be—well, I’m not the one about to go get himself shot at. And what’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”

“I dunno.” Bucky doesn’t even have the good grace to look ashamed. “I just—wanna make sure nothing happens to you.”

“To me,” Steve repeats. “Alone in an apartment with a bunch of Agent Somebodies making sure I don’t leave, not even allowed to join the army. I can’t believe you’re asking me this.” He glares harder. “Like you think I don’t know how to eat or somethin’.”

“You know that’s not it,” Bucky says, dogged, “come on. I wanna know if you’ll be _all right.”_ He waves a hand. “You know.”

Steve’s beginning to think he doesn’t, really. All he’s sure of is that it’s not fair of Bucky to be so soft like this, to press himself closer when he’s about to be ripped away. It’s only going to hurt more. And he thinks Bucky must be aware of that, or else he would have gone into the bedroom already. What a pair, the two of them. Gluttons for punishment.

Because Steve doesn’t want him to get up and go, even if it would make things easier. “You remember that time,” he says, “when you fell off the pier? Few years ago now.”

“How could I forget?” Bucky replies, though he looks confused. “Almost died, didn’t I?”

“You hacked up half a lung, I swear. And then you said—” Steve smiles, hearing it again. “You said, shit, Stevie, it’s really a drag when you can’t breathe, and I said, gee, Barnes, I’ve got no idea what that’s like—”

“Yeah, yeah, I said I remember, you don’t need to—”

“So my point is,” Steve continues, “I’m kind of used to keepin’ my head above water. Don’t worry about me.” Which is stupid. Bucky worries as much as Steve does.

But he just smiles a little and chuckles. “I guess.” The record skips and scratches, finished. Bucky gets up and takes it off, then puts it away and turns back to Steve. “You gonna get up, or do I have to lug that couch with you still on it?”

They go to bed and Steve doesn’t spare another thought for the tightness in his chest when he looks at Bucky, which isn’t new, exactly, but has never pulled this taut before. He doesn’t want to sully their last hours, even as he tries not to think about it like that. So he lies down beside Bucky and watches the last of the summer sun creep down the wall until at last all is dark.

When he wakes up, Bucky is on his back next to him, staring at the ceiling. His chest barely moves when he breathes and his arms are straight at his sides. Steve can’t read the expression in his eyes, and he’s a little afraid to try. So he shifts, and watches as Bucky realizes he’s awake. “Morning,” Steve says. He lets the hour color his voice.

“Hey.” When Bucky looks at him, his face is sleepy, nothing more.

Steve is alone in the bedroom half an hour later, staring at himself in the spotted, crooked mirror and trying to work up the courage to step back into the living room where he knows Bucky will say goodbye to him. He runs a comb through his hair, leans on the window and looks out. His feet don’t want to move.

In the other room, someone knocks on the door, and Bucky’s voice says, “To what do I owe the pleasure?” in that tone that means he doesn’t find much pleasure in it.

Steve comes barreling out of the bedroom to see Agent Carter stepping over the threshold, wearing military dress and accompanied by five guys in uniform. “Good morning,” she says.

“Good morning,” Steve replies automatically. He looks to Bucky and back at Carter. “I’ve stayed here. We haven’t—done anything.” He wonders if it’s against the rules to have a house party.

Carter smiles. “And I’m not here to reprimand. I thought you might like to see Mr. Barnes off properly.”

“What?”

It’s Bucky who puts it together. “An escort?” he says, sounding impressed and also very dubious. “An escort for Steve.”

“Well, yes.” Carter lifts her chin. “We are trying to keep people safe, but we aren’t cruel. On a day like this, it’s the least we can do.”

And just like that, Steve’s back to feeling the full weight of dread in the pit of his stomach. But he’s grateful to Carter, and he knows Bucky is, too, though all either of them says is “thank you, ma’am.” There are two cars waiting in the street below and they get in, Carter in the passenger seat with Steve and Bucky in the back.

“Lap of luxury, huh?” Steve says softly.

Bucky gives Steve a crooked smile and then turns away, staring out the window.

Steve watches him for a second. He wonders if Bucky’s quiet because they have an audience, or because he’s upset. He wonders if Bucky’s scared. They’ve never really talked about that—not just with the war, but ever. Steve knows Bucky’s been scared before, all those winter coughs and summer fevers, the time he broke his arm at the docks, even two weeks ago when Steve told him he’d been shot at. And Steve’s been frightened, too; hell, he gets so scared thinking about Bucky in the war that his throat closes up like an asthma attack. They both know fear. They just don’t know how to talk about it.

Glancing away from Bucky, he sees Carter’s eyes on him in the mirror. She looks away immediately. “You guys give rides like this a lot?” Steve asks her. He feels, rather than sees, Bucky start beside him.

Carter’s gaze snaps back to him. “No, this is a special case.”

Bucky kicks Steve’s ankle. “Who knew it took me goin’ to war to get you halfway across the city without bustin’ a lung?” When Steve blinks at him, Bucky shrugs. “Gallows humor, I guess.” Then his eyes go wide and his mouth tightens, and he looks down. They don’t speak again.

They pull up a block away from the bus stop and Steve can’t tell if it’s to give them privacy or to avoid making a scene or both. Either way, he’s glad. He and Bucky amble down the sidewalk, their steps dragging. Steve feels queasy and he guesses from how deep Bucky’s shoved his hands into his pockets that he feels the same.

“Hey,” Steve says, and just like in the car, it comes out abrupt and a little too loud. Bucky looks at him. “Hey, I, uh—” He doesn’t know what to say. Wildly, his mind focuses on Bucky’s crooked collar. He reaches up to straighten it, his fingers pressed still for a moment against the skin of Bucky’s neck, and his eyes feel hot.

Bucky smiles, not crooked this time, just a smile. The one he saves for Steve in the black hours of the night, the one he brings out during good songs over busted knuckles. Different even from the one he turns on dames. “What am I gonna do without you?” Bucky says as Steve lets his hands drop.

Steve’s been asking himself the same question for weeks, months. He doesn’t have an answer, and it makes some part of him hurt to hear Bucky ask it now. “Probably get a good night’s sleep or somethin’,” Steve says. “Least you won’t have to punch anyone for me for a while.”

“Hell, I think I’ll miss that.”

“Then you’ll just have to come back soon, won’t you?”

Bucky chuckles and scratches his jaw, then lowers his hand and surveys Steve with a darkening look. All at once, Steve knows what he’s thinking, and he’s hit with it, too—the yawning, fathomless chasm that is the realization that Bucky might _not_ come back. He’s avoided dwelling on it so far but now he can’t stop the possibility from choking him.

“Steve,” Bucky says, “if—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Steve growls, and sniffs, and wipes at his eyes with one hand under the guise of brushing his hair back from his face. “Don’t say any of that.”

He sees it when Bucky swallows. After a pause, he nods. “Well. See you in a while, then.”

“I’ll write, will you?”

“’Course.” Bucky grins, watery. “Even if I can’t tell you anything and it’s just to complain, don’t think you won’t hear from me.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“I know you will.” Just like when he left for basic, Bucky pulls Steve into a hug, but he doesn’t let go so quickly this time. Maybe because they’re still a few yards from everyone else. Maybe because he’s got the same wrenching inside him that Steve does. Steve feels Bucky’s fingers warm through the back of his shirt and his chin digging into Steve’s shoulder. “You take care of yourself.”

“If you do.” Steve means it and means it hard, but he says it like a joke.

Bucky takes the excuse, laughing, and they’ve still got their arms around each other so the vibration of his voice and breath moves through both of them. “You’re a punk,” Bucky says, letting go.

“Jerk.” Steve grins up at him.

“Guilty as charged.” Bucky’s gaze travels over Steve, and he opens his mouth like he wants to say something—but he gives his head a little shake and turns around, starts walking away.

“Be careful,” Steve says because he can’t stop himself, because Bucky is about to get onto that bus and his heart is beating so fast that it pushes the words out of his mouth with a force that surprises him. “Don’t win the war till I get there.”

Bucky turns and salutes. His face is calm but his eyes are sad, and the smile at the corner of his mouth is sharp. Then he steps into the bus, and this time Steve doesn’t stay to watch it drive off. He doesn’t think he can quite stand it.

He walks back to the cars. The men are all in their seats, but Carter’s leaning on the fender, staring off in the opposite direction. When he approaches she looks around. “I’m very sorry,” she says. “I know this—is never easy.”

Some part of Steve wants to puff himself up and brush it off— _I’m proud of him, he’ll be a hero_ —all true, but the bravado is too much. It’s something Bucky would do. Steve just nods. “Do you have anyone over there?” he asks.

She looks at him for a moment, an odd twist to her lips. “My brother,” she says at last. She looks down. “He died two years ago.”

A well of horror opens inside Steve, and he knows it shows on his face. “I’m real sorry, ma’am—Agent Cart—”

“Call me Peggy,” she says. When she meets his gaze, she doesn’t look tearful or even all that sad; what she does look is determined. “I think we’ve seen enough of each other by now to be on more familiar terms.”

Steve has a sneaking suspicion she’s just taking pity on him. Then again—they’ve seen each other once a week, sometimes more, for three months. It’s likely they’ll continue to see each other for who knows how long. “Sure,” he says. “I guess I’m Steve, then.”

A smile breaks free of her professional poker face for just a second. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she says, and holds the door open for him to get into the car.

Evening settles over the apartment that night with a horrible stillness. Steve attempts to bear it by retrieving the whiskey from the back of the cabinet and pouring himself a glass, drinking it down, and pouring another one. He expects the burn to feel good, to relieve the sensation of a limb cut away, but all it does is make him cough, and he can’t escape the sound of his rattling lungs and the knowledge of what Bucky would say if he heard it. _Fuckin’ lightweight,_ even though Steve isn’t.

He goes to the window and leans his forehead against the cool glass, staring out at the street but not seeing much beyond his own distorted reflection. “This is the worst I’ve ever felt,” he says aloud—he’ll be as melodramatic as he goddamn well pleases, since nobody’s around to tease him for it anymore—then thinks belatedly that maybe he’s tempting fate. He reaches out to rap his knuckles against the wooden window frame and takes another drink.

And maybe it’s the whiskey or the hour or what his ma called the second sight, but as he turns away from the window, all the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand up. He looks out the window again but he still can’t see—he goes and turns out the light. The street’s far enough below, and the night is dark enough, that he can’t make out anything very detailed. But he thinks he sees something other than the stray cats. A dark shape, bigger, casting a shadow from the streetlamp. A glint of metal. He blinks, and it’s gone.

 

———

 

_Dear Bucky,_

_I know you’ll wanna hear right away if anything changes, so let me tell you first that it’s all been the same as usual around here. Nobody’s shot at me yet—I imagine you can’t exactly say the same where you are. So I figure between us we’ve probably got enough excitement to go around._

_The day after you left, Nancy came down and asked if she could read your books now that you’re gone. With that little freckly grin she’s got, too, the one she tried to punch you for teasing her about. I can just hear you telling her to keep her paws off, but I gave her your Fitzgerald stories. Figured someone might as well enjoy them, and I read everything you’ve got while you were at basic. Sorry._

_That’s honestly the only thing I can think of to write if you can believe it. You’ll have to reply quick and tell me some stories so I can laugh at you. I want to hear about the guys you’re stationed with. Hopefully they’re all right, and hopefully you don’t get so sick of them that you come back early (it’s not just that I’m glad to get rid of you, but I might have a chance with girls if I ever get out of this apartment). Let me know if there’s anything worth drawing over there, too. I’ll give it a shot and send it with my next letter, and then you can tell me if it’s any good. That’s probably as close as we’ll come to you threatening to drop my sketchbook off the pier when I bug you._

_Peggy says you’re probably going to Italy first. Enjoy the weather if you can—or is summer a rainy season there? See, this is the most boring letter I’ve ever written, I can’t believe I’m talking about this. Anyway I really hope you’ve got as little to do as I have. Try not to get too lazy._

_Shit, Buck, the more I think about it, the more I want to burn this letter. I’d better send it before I do something stupid and leave you wondering for months if I’ve finally kicked the bucket. Sorry. Shut up, Steve._

_Anyway._

_Yours,_

_Steve_

Steve mails the letter a week and a day after Bucky leaves, after standing in front of his door for fifteen minutes before heading downstairs just in time to catch the mailman. He hopes it arrives on time, and reminds himself to ask Peggy if she knows how long it’ll take the next time she comes around.

But he doesn’t expect a visit from her for at least another week, so he really is back to his old standard of reading books, sketching, and staring at the ceiling. He finally throws in the towel and goes to visit Mrs. O’Reilly again, figuring that if there are people watching over him then they’ll probably watch him in her apartment too, and that in any case there’s no point in hiding out alone if he goes crazy from the solitude.

She appears to have mostly forgiven him for rushing out so abruptly three months ago, and even for failing to apologize in all that time. Steve suspects that it’s not much more than good manners, though, and maybe the influence of Eleanor the cat, who is so happy to see Steve that she jumps onto his shoulders. He gives Mrs. O’Reilly the other, unopened bottle of whiskey and thinks it may have helped.

In any case, she sits Steve down at her table like before and sets a plate of pie in front of him. “So you don’t run off this time,” she says, then gets a plate for herself and sits down across from him. “Now tell me, did you give Barnes a proper send-off last week? You folks made enough racket.”

Steve bites his lip. “I’m sorry, Mrs. O’Reilly,” he says. “That was Bucky’s idea, but we shouldn’t have been so loud—”

“Oh, eat your pie,” she says, jutting her chin out at the plate, which he hasn’t touched yet. “I know what good a nice dance can do, especially at a time like this. This isn’t my first war.” She gives him a little nod. “Back when my Harry went to fight in France, we stayed out all night dancing to hot jazz—and getting jazzed ourselves. Harry could hardly get onto the train home.”

“All night?” Steve repeats, raising his eyebrows.

Mrs. O’Reilly frowns. “And don’t you doubt it for a second. I’m surprised your party ended so early. When I was a girl, we didn’t let a little thing like politeness or midnight stop us.” When Steve opens his mouth to apologize again, she waves her hand. “I’m just pleased to see that you young people are able to enjoy yourselves in spite of everything. It’s not quite the same, after the war.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, his mouth dry.

She gives him a look that might be pitying. “It’s just different. When Harry came back, he didn’t want to talk about what he’d seen and done, which—well, I won’t deny I was curious, but I could see that he just didn’t have the words. And the nightmares got better after a while.” She sighs. “But when he drank after that, he got sad. There are some things, I think, that you bring back with you from war, and some things that get lost on the battlefield.”

Steve puts down his fork. “That’s horrible.”

“That’s how it is,” she says. “Your boy Barnes has got a good head on his shoulders and a sharp pair of eyes, but I don’t know if he’ll dance much when he comes back.” Then she sighs, deep and pained, with her eyes closed. When she opens them, she smiles at him. “I’m not trying to scare you, Steven,” she says, “but you’re no fool.”

The conversation haunts Steve for days afterwards until he’s so relieved to see Peggy in the hallway that he thinks he could just about cry. He invites her in and she sits down, and while he makes her coffee she taps her fingers on the table as if she doesn’t know what to say.

But when he brings the cup over, she takes it with a smile. “How have you been?” she asks.

“Oh,” Steve says, “I’m just fine, you know me. How are you?”

“Quite all right,” Peggy replies. But Steve thinks she looks drawn, tired. Something about the tense way she sits in the chair. He doesn’t know how to ask, though, and she doesn’t give him the opportunity. “Do you know it’s been nearly four months since all this began?” she asks.

“Seems about right,” says Steve, who has been keeping a tally in the back of _The Call of Cthulhu._

“I’m sure it’s been rather onerous,” Peggy says with a quirk to her mouth, “so I’m glad to be able to tell you that, barring further developments in this next week, your house arrest will be over.”

Steve blinks. “You mean—” He stops himself. It seems a little ungrateful to say _I’ll be free?_ “You mean it’s safe?”

“As safe as can be expected,” Peggy says. “We’ve uncovered nothing, and to be honest, our resources would be put to better use elsewhere.”

It takes a second for Steve to comprehend. “So—so it’s not really safe,” he says slowly, “but you’ve all got better things to do than make sure I don’t die?”

Peggy meets his eyes. “Quite.”

She sounds so amused, and faintly apologetic, that Steve has to grin. “And the only thing I can do to keep you guys protecting me is die sometime before Saturday?”

It looks like Peggy’s struggling with whether or not to nod. She gives a little jerk of her head. “That does sum things up nicely.”

“Well, that sounds like a raw deal,” Steve says, but he’s still smiling, and he hopes she knows he’s not really offended. It really does feel like there’s little to be worried about now, whether or not they’ve actually rooted out the original shooter. Four months of nothing have drained most of the urgency from the situation. And sure, Steve knows that what Peggy’s just told him is true, and that the risk isn’t technically gone, but it’s hard to get too worked up about that with the possibility of freedom in just a week’s time.

Peggy smiles back, though she still looks tired, and offers no reply.

“So what will you do,” Steve asks after a short silence, “if you’re not keepin’ tabs on me?”

“That’s a good question.” Peggy sips her coffee, her gaze traveling over Steve’s face. “I expect I’ll be assigned further work in the city. In fact,” she says, “we may still see each other from time to time.”

“Really?” Steve can’t deny he’s glad to hear it; her visits were the bright points of his solitude when Bucky was at basic, and he imagines it’ll be the same now that Bucky’s shipped out. “What do you mean?”

“You remember Dr. Erskine?” When Steve nods, Peggy purses her lips. “He’s still looking for a subject for his project. We’ve found several candidates, but very few that meet his—er—rather high standards.” She nods at him. “I believe you are among those still under consideration.”

Steve snorts. “Don’t I have to consent or something?”

“Of course,” Peggy says, “but until you give an answer one way or another, you’ll most likely be the object of quite a lot of recruitment efforts. It’s a very important project.” She smirks slightly as she says it, as if to downplay how important it actually is, but her eyes are serious.

“So what’s the project?” Steve asks.

Peggy meets his challenging gaze without hesitation. “That depends on whether or not you agree to participate. It’s important,” she repeats, “and as I said before, highly classified as well.”

“You guys oughta work on sellin’ that a little better,” Steve says, and then thinks about it for a second. “Can you at least tell me—I don’t know, something?” He frowns. “Erskine said something about fighting the last time he was here. Is it a fighting job?”

As she watches him, Peggy’s mouth twists sideways, and she fingers the handle of her coffee cup. “Yes, it is,” she says at last.

“Well, I don’t know if you noticed,” Steve says, gesturing to himself, “but guys like me don’t tend to do too much fighting.”

“Your addiction to back-alley fisticuffs would suggest otherwise,” Peggy says dryly. “In any case, if you were accepted, your size wouldn’t be an issue.”

“What about the asthma?” he asks. “And the heart murmur, and the crooked spine, and—all the rest of it?”

“If you were chosen to participate,” Peggy repeats, “it would all be irrelevant.”

“That’s somethin’ I don’t hear every day,” Steve says to cover his surprise. Wouldn’t it just be grand, he thinks, if he managed to get overseas despite everything that’s always counted against him? To finally be able to do his part, especially after so long hiding in his apartment. Then, without meaning to, he imagines what Bucky would have to say about all this, and feels a mixture of pain and indignation.

Like she knows what he’s thinking of, Peggy gives him a searching look. “Don’t decide now,” she says, finishes her coffee, and stands up. “If you choose by the end of the week, then let me know. But this isn’t a commitment that should be made lightly.”

“Sure,” Steve says, standing up a second too late, taken aback by his own doubts and by her abrupt departure. “You’ll be coming by again, then?”

“Certainly.” Peggy smiles. “Someone has to give you the official all-clear.”

“I’m lookin’ forward to it,” Steve says.

The last week of surveillance passes without incident, and Steve spends his time staring out the window and wondering how the hell he’s going to find a job when he’s done nothing at all for a third of a year. It was always simpler for Bucky to find work, with his wholesome smile and solid, dependable presence, and half the time he’d be the one to get a foot in the door for Steve—as much as Steve hated it. Steve still hates it, but he’d give an arm and a leg to have someone to vouch for him this time.

Saturday morning, Nancy, who’s been delivering Steve’s mail from the post office, brings him a letter and gets to pick out a new book in return. She walks out with _The Time Machine_. After closing the door behind her, Steve leans on the counter to read.

_Steve,_

_I don’t know when this will reach you but I’m writing on the third day after I left. Maybe it’s stupid to write when nothing’s happened yet, but I guess I don’t know what to do without you pestering me every hour of the day._

_Honest, though, nothing’s happened at all. It’s rainy as hell in Italy though they tell us it’s usually drier. Apparently we’ll get fog in the winter, which should be lots of fun. Anyways right now all we’re doing is traveling, day in, day out. We should be in position by the first of August—mark your calendar._

_Till then, though, you’re not missing anything, and I swear I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. I actually get a little jealous thinking of you sitting in the apartment all day long. I’ll write again when I can and I won’t leave out anything important, you can count on that._

_Don’t get shot._

_Bucky_

“Are you all right?” Peggy asks about half an hour later, when she arrives to set him free.

The letter is still sitting on the counter, and Steve glances at it and then back at Peggy. She follows his gaze. “It’s from Bucky,” he says by way of explanation, and when she looks sympathetic, he adds quickly, “He’s fine. Or he was when he wrote it.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Peggy says.

“He’s in Italy,” Steve offers. “Like you said.”

“When did he write it?”

Steve shrugs. “Couple of weeks ago.”

Peggy gives him a shrewd look. “I can’t stop you worrying,” she says, “but I recommend that you let it go for now. There ought to be another letter before long. You would have heard if something had happened.”

She’s right, Steve knows. In the face of her logic he’s able to smile and listen to the debriefing and calmly walk her down to the front door of the building. He’s even able to tell her, with conviction, that he’d like to be a part of that project that Dr. Erskine’s working on.

She shakes his hand, seriously, like it’s a contract. “He’ll be in touch,” she says. She sounds almost proud, and Steve watches her car drive off with a faint and curious excitement simmering in his chest. But as soon as Peggy’s gone, Steve’s right back to fretting, a feeling in his stomach like something’s trying to escape.

It’s not even noon. Steve puts on a jacket and heads outside, sweating a little in the heat. The first of August was over a week ago, and Steve spent it cooking, if he remembers correctly, making a soup for Mrs. O’Reilly as thanks for the pie. He put on a record. Meanwhile, he thinks, Bucky was walking into danger and maybe even—God—

Steve trips.

He catches himself in time, but not without bracing one hand on the warm pavement, and he catches out of the corner of his eye a strange motion. Someone behind him, stopping suddenly, just as he does. Steve recognizes the suit, the quick movements. It’s one of Peggy’s agents. He shakes his head and keeps walking. Whoever it is clearly wasn’t informed that Steve is no longer under surveillance—or maybe it’s one last measure. Either way, he just doesn’t give a damn today.

Taking a quick left turn onto a new street, Steve watches in car windshields to check that the agent is, yes, still following him. He’s paying so much attention to his shadow that he nearly gets brained by some kid’s baseball, and he ducks—and the shop window on his left shatters.

The baseball goes sailing somewhere behind him, so it takes the space of a single, terrified heartbeat before he realizes that something else must have broken the window. Just as he thinks it, someone tackles him from behind. “Stay down,” barks a voice in his ear. It’s the agent who was following him.

Obeying the order, Steve raises his head a fraction of an inch so he can at least see what’s going on. The street is now swarming with people. Most of them appear to be SSR agents, or maybe even military, some ushering the civilians away while others exchange fire with someone striding around a corner towards them.

Seeing the man again sends a jolt through Steve’s body that has nothing to do with being pressed against the concrete. The way he walks is strange, purposeful and unfaltering even under attack, a soldier’s walk; he’s wearing some kind of bulletproof uniform and he uses his armored left arm as a shield for half his body. Above the mask, his eyes are cold.

He’s taking out the fighters left and right, and though they’re putting up a solid front, it’s clear even to Steve that they’re scrambling. It doesn’t seem possible that one man could wreak so much havoc—here he disables three men’s guns at once, there he darts in and out of the line of fire in such a convoluted pattern that all the agents end up shooting at each other more often than not. Everything he does is so precise and calculated that it’s like watching a machine.

At last there seems to be a new plan: as one, the agents swarm the soldier, not even firing but just converging on him in unison. They manage to get his firearm away from him, and it goes spinning across the pavement, but he’s got at least one knife—and he’s still vicious. The conflict turns into a very bloody fistfight. The man holds his own, but even he isn’t a match for so many. He goes down—rolls—Steve watches from his odd angle as he wrestles with two of the agents on the ground—and then he stands up, and leaves the mask behind.

He turns.

Steve rejects what he’s seeing at first, attributing it to looking at the scene sideways, and to so much wishful thinking that he’s started imagining things. But he blinks and the soldier is still there, going hand-to-hand with three others, and it’s not a faceless assassin anymore. It’s Bucky.

But his hair is long, and his face is twisted in rigid concentration, and he doesn’t move like the Bucky that Steve knows. He’s methodical in his attacks—everything deliberate, bending and striking at exactly the right moment. It would be beautiful, Steve thinks in utter bewilderment, if it weren’t so deadly. But he can see that the man—it’s not Bucky, it can’t be—is losing that control. His movements are growing wilder, more savage, as if he’s desperate. He fumbles a knife, gets hit from behind. Goes down again.

“Clear!” someone shouts.

The agents scatter and there’s only that lone figure left in the street, rising slowly from his knees. Steve twists around, still pinned down by the man on top of him, and sees Peggy with a pistol trained on the soldier. She’s got an open view now, nothing to stop her from shooting. And Steve doesn’t want to believe that it’s Bucky standing there, but he knows that someone is about to die and everything in him rejects it. She’s going to shoot. He can see, even from this distance, that she’s about to pull the trigger.

Steve doesn’t know how he does it. He’s too small, he should be stuck, helpless. But maybe it’s the years of throwing himself against impossible odds in empty lots and back alleys, or the lessons where Bucky insisted that if he wanted to fight he should at least know how to do the moves properly, or maybe it’s just a nameless and bone-deep fear. Steve throws the man off of him and runs into the street, flings himself into the line of fire. “Don’t shoot him!” he yells, louder than he knew he could be. “I know him!”

He’s facing Peggy, who’s saying something Steve can’t hear. He turns around to face the soldier. In the last four seconds the man has managed to retrieve his own gun and has it raised, pointed at Steve, and through him, Peggy too.

And looking at him, Steve sees clearly—beyond all shadow of a doubt—that it is Bucky, that he really is here, that he is the one responsible for everything that’s happened. He’s speechless with the realization, and more than that with being close enough to see that whatever is in Bucky’s eyes, he’s never seen it before. They’re not cold like they were before, or empty now that Bucky’s no longer fighting. They’re wide and staring and full of something awful. There’s a searing pain in Steve’s chest, seeing a look like that.

“Get _back!”_ Peggy is screaming at him, probably because he’s about to get shot by one or both of them.

With his hands in the air automatically, Steve turns to look at her and sees that, yes, she’s pointing her pistol at Bucky through him. “Don’t shoot,” he says again, urgently, “he’s—”

It’s too late. She fires a shot over his shoulder. Steve whips around and sees that she missed—that everyone else who’s just fired has missed as well, because Bucky has vanished, gone who knows where and leaving nothing behind but a mask and a powerful ache.

Peggy’s snapping out orders to those agents who are still in a fit state to be ordered, detailing what sounds like a perimeter and runners for reinforcements. Steve starts toward her in order to explain why she can’t do that, but she marches toward him and meets him halfway, her face white with fury. “You _shit,”_ she says, “you got in the way, what the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed.”

“He’s my friend,” Steve says, breathless, “that’s Bucky—Sergeant Barnes—that was him.” He coughs. “Whatever you do, don’t—hurt him, don’t—try to—” Steve stops; he can barely breathe, and his chest and throat feel tight. He shakes his head when Peggy looks concerned. “Asthma,” he gasps out, and sits down heavily on the curb, where he does his best just to breathe.

About thirty seconds later, two agents haul him up and deposit him, not roughly, in an automobile, which starts driving immediately. Recognizing faintly that he’s being sent home, Steve coughs and wheezes his way through a minute and a half. He knows he should calm down, that it will be easier to recover if his heart isn’t racing. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know what to do at all.

By the time they reach the apartment building, Steve is able to walk inside and begin his slow crawl up the stairs without help, and shakes off the agents when they try to support him by the elbows. Only when they follow him onto the seventh-floor landing does he wonder if maybe they’re trying to make sure he doesn’t run off or lash out. The thought makes him chuckle dizzily. As if he could. As if he _would,_ now.

He sits down heavily at the table and looks around. The agents have left him alone, though he’s pretty sure they’re just waiting outside in the hall. Steve places his palms flat on the table and stares at the wood, dark brown and shiny. They found it in the alley when they got the place, he and Bucky, and Bucky carried it up the stairs where Steve helped him maneuver it into the apartment. They had dinner around the table that night, just some beans really, but they felt like kings. Steve can still remember the way Bucky rapped his knuckles proudly against the tabletop.

He breathes out, slow. The truth of what he saw hasn’t really hit him yet, and he’s still stuck on that one endless moment in which Bucky looked at him. He knows those were Bucky’s eyes, he knows their color and shape better than he knows his own in the mirror. Thinking of their haunted expression is more than he can bear. What happened to Bucky to make him like that? How long has it been? Steve counts on his fingers—only three and a half weeks since he saw Bucky last. It doesn’t seem possible that anything so strange could happen in that time.

And the way he _moved_ —like a machine, really, that’s all Steve can think of to compare it to. Bucky lazes, Bucky slouches, Bucky dances like no one else in the world. He’s never been this way before. Steve’s known him all his life—he fists his hands on the table—since he was old enough to know anybody at all. It just doesn’t make sense.

Peggy returns that evening. Opening the door to see her in the hallway, Steve is hit with the realization that she was here only this morning. He realizes, in the same moment, that he has Bucky’s letter in his back pocket; he’d forgotten about it. He feels a thousand years older than he was when he first read it, when Peggy sat at his table and told him to let it go. Now, with the shadows outside lengthening, she sits down at the table again, and Steve resumes his seat across from her.

She studies her fingers. “We can’t be sure what we saw today,” she begins.

“You’re tellin’ me that didn’t look like Bucky?” Steve says.

“It did look like him.” Peggy purses her lips. “But we can’t base anything off of a resemblance—”

“I know when my best friend’s standing right—”

“And furthermore,” Peggy continues, speaking over him, “Sergeant Barnes is currently in Italy.”

Steve pulls the letter out of his pocket. “He sent this weeks ago,” he reminds her. “How do you know where he is now?”

“Because we radioed his CO this afternoon,” Peggy says, “and I was assured personally that he could not possibly be in Brooklyn.”

Steve stares at her. “Then,” he says, and swallows, “what the hell happened today?” Even if it’s not Bucky—if it’s just some uncannily accurate lookalike—he still doesn’t know who it _was,_ or why, or any of the rest of it.

“I don’t know.” She sighs. “Nobody has any answers yet. But we have an idea of where he might have gone, whoever he is, so—”

“Hang on,” Steve interrupts again. “How do you know where he went? I thought you said last week that you guys hadn’t got anywhere.”

Peggy looks at him without speaking, her jaw set.

“Did you know something?” Steve demands. His heart is pounding again, suddenly, and he thinks for a second that he might have another attack, but no, he’s just furious. Furious and terrified—and not for himself. _“Do_ you know something? About—any of it?” She’s just denied it, of course, but Steve is beginning to think that she’s a better liar than he’s given her credit for. “Peggy,” he says, and his own voice sounds foreign to his ears. “I’m beggin’ you, if you know what’s goin’ on then you gotta—”

“I haven’t got,” Peggy says, her tone low, “to do anything, Steve. This is a matter beyond you or me, beyond the city, even. We are at war and all hostile acts must take that into account.” And then her gaze softens. “I know this is hard for you. But I promise you, I don’t know who that was in the street today, any more than I know what he wants.”

Steve isn’t sure he believes her, but he sits back in his chair, listening.

“Here is what we do know.” Peggy steeples her fingers together. “As before, this man is armed, dangerous, and ruthless. Only superior numbers can make him retreat. And he is still targeting you. But now we have also discovered that he bears a strong resemblance to Sergeant Barnes, and that his left arm is not merely armored, but made of metal itself.” Steve makes an involuntary noise of surprise and she nods. “Agent Dooley fought with him at close quarter. He says it was some kind of prosthetic.”

“Is that even possible?” Steve asks.

“Not with the technology we have,” Peggy says, “but that’s another thing that we already knew.” She shakes her head. “This is bigger than us, Steve, and I wish I could tell you more, but I couldn’t even if I knew anything else.” She looks right at him and he knows she’s willing him to believe her. He can’t quite. “If you meant what you said this morning, however, then there may be a way for you to—”

“No,” Steve says, a little late. It took him a few seconds to realize that she’s talking about Dr. Erskine’s project, which now feels so far removed from everything that’s happened that it could belong to someone else’s life. “I mean—I’m not sure anymore.” He isn’t sure what, exactly, is stopping him, but it’s unyielding as iron. “Can I have a few more days? Just to think about it?”

Peggy contemplates him for a moment, then nods. “You understand, of course, that you will be under surveillance again,” she says. There’s an unwilling twist at the corner of her mouth. “For a shorter period this time, but nevertheless…”

“Why a shorter period?”

“Because we’ve just found out that we are being played,” Peggy tells him. “That shooter waited for months without showing his face, and then appeared again the moment you were unprotected. We’ll likely never find anything significant if we continue to keep you under lockdown.”

Steve’s glad to hear this; in spite of the unsettling idea of a master strategist, he’s just looking forward to the prospect of being able to walk around freely again. Even if he’s being hunted. But—“What about civilians?” he asks. “Didn’t you yell at me and Bucky last time for putting other people at risk?”

“You’re a civilian, too,” she reminds him. “As I’ve been saying—this is part of a bigger picture. Sometimes risks have to be absorbed.”

After Peggy leaves, Steve is restless. He wonders what it’s like to have to make a decision like that, or to have any part in it—to weigh the lives of some against those of others. But it’s like she said: they are at war. And it seems that this particular part of it is going to find him no matter who is standing in the way.

He can’t sleep. So he opens his sketchbook and stares at it, expecting to have the same lack of inspiration as he has had practically ever since he was first confined to the apartment. And then his pencil touches the paper and Steve loses himself in the image behind his eyes. It takes shape slowly—a hulking form, viewed from slightly below, blotting out the sun. Broad shoulders take up more of the page than they should and the metal arm shines. Steve draws it all in rough lines, but even so, he is struck with the finished result. The eyes above the mask belong to Bucky.

Staring at it, he recognizes the scene, which appears fractured and hazy in his memory. He hadn’t realized it at first. This is the first attack, the assassin standing on the roof, frozen in the split second where Steve turned to look at him. Before he had held his gun at the ready. On the paper it hangs limply at his side. Steve is surprised to find that he still has this picture in his head, since he’s done his best not to think of it, and since the glimpse he got of the figure was so brief and so long ago. But here it is. It sends chills down Steve’s crooked spine.

Logically, he knows that this should erase all speculation at the soldier’s identity, because how could Bucky have attacked him after Steve put him on a bus that very morning? But all it does is fill Steve with a horror that he can’t give a voice to or put to words even in his head. He knows, somehow, beyond doubt or reason or even hope, that it was Bucky. On the rooftop then, in the street today. He doesn’t know how or why but he _knows_ it. He looked into Bucky’s eyes, saw his expression change. He was near enough to touch. He was there.

In the morning, when Steve doesn’t so much wake up as stop trying to sleep, he gets dressed and stops, staring down at his socks in their drawer, beneath which he can see a folded piece of paper. The old 4F form peeks up at him. Reaching down almost unconsciously, Steve pulls it out and sees the spot of blood, dark with age. He doesn’t know how it got there, but he blinks at it stupidly for a moment, one heartbeat following another in an endless, building dread.

He hides the form away again and closes the drawer. Then he goes into the kitchen and sticks his arm into the back of the cabinet where they keep the whiskey, moving his hand over and to the left in the dark space. His fingers close around cold, slightly dusty metal, and he pulls out the gun Peggy gave him.

He hasn’t touched it since he put it here, the day after opening the package. Couldn’t quite bring himself to. Steve’s stomach churns a little now, thinking of how it’s supposed to be used, who it’s supposed to be used on. He knows he’ll never fire it. But he brings the gun into his bedroom anyways, slips it into the drawer next to the 4F. He makes breakfast and tries not to think about it, without success.

A week and a half pass by in the same distracted manner, and truth be told Steve doesn’t really care that he’s still trapped in the apartment. He hardly even notices. His thoughts are all of Bucky now, and every day he starts to write a letter, except how could he ever explain this? And is Bucky even in Europe? Each letter ends as a crumpled ball in the trash.

Steve takes to leaving his door unlocked, the windows cracked. It’s not like it matters; the SSR security will probably catch the soldier—Bucky—whoever it is—before anything happens. And he still has the gun in his dresser. It’s wishful thinking, nothing more. But then, as he’s staring at the wall in the middle of the night, willing himself to sleep, he hears a noise on the fire escape.

It could be nothing. It could have any number of innocent sources. Still, Steve sits up, looks to the window. He can’t see anything from this angle, and for a moment he considers lying back down. Then he gets out of bed and goes to the window, pushes it up all the way, sticks his head out into the night. There, to his left, stands Bucky.

If there were any doubt about it in the street, there’s none now, where Steve has seen Bucky stand a million times before. Even with the shadows deep between them, Steve feels an iron certainty that it’s him: leaning on the railing, waiting for Steve to come find him. All that’s missing is the smoke dangling from his fingers. “Bucky,” Steve breathes without deciding to. He’s through the window entirely before he notices the knife.

It’s wicked and sharp and it gleams in the light of the street lamps far below and the moon so far above. Bucky holds it like it really is a smoke, with ease and a chilling familiarity. Shaken, Steve looks to his face—and he’s gaunt, dirty, like hell in every sense of the word, but there’s a battle playing itself out over Bucky’s expression that gives him pause. The knife in his hand stays where it is. “Bucky,” Steve says again, “what—?”

He honestly doesn’t know how to finish the question, but Bucky speaks before he can try. “That’s not me.”

And, God, his voice. Steve is euphoric and appalled in equal measure, because here, finally, is incontrovertible proof that this _is_ Bucky, despite what he’s just said, but although the pitch and the slide of the vowels is as familiar as breathing, Steve also hears what’s different. A clipped quality, somehow, and a note of desperation. Steve sucks in a breath and wills his mouth to work again. “Well, who are you, then?”

For a long moment, Bucky stares at him. He shakes his head convulsively and his grip on the knife tightens. “I don’t know anymore,” he rasps.

“Do you—” Steve swallows. He can’t stop tracing with his gaze the shadows under Bucky’s eyes, the taut line of his jaw. “Do you know who I am?”

Bucky opens his mouth. Steve can see him take a deep breath, the shudder of it visible in his shoulders. “Steve,” he says, his mouth careful around the word, and he says it like a question, like he’s not sure: _Steve?_

But he says it. Steve is surprised at the sudden tightness in his chest, the ache in his throat at hearing Bucky say his name. “Yeah, that’s me,” he chokes out. “You—you, uh, wanna come inside?”

Bucky blinks at him like he doesn’t understand the question.

“C’mon.” Steve ducks halfway back into the apartment. “It’s kinda cold out tonight.” He doesn’t even have to lie; it’s halfway through September, and there is the beginning of autumn in the air.

It’s a gamble. But Bucky does follow him in, albeit hesitantly, and when he’s climbed in the window he stares at the apartment, his eyes huge. “This,” he says, and stops. His gaze darts from place to place in quick succession.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asks. In the small room, his voice seems too loud, and he tries to lower it. “How did you—?”

Bucky’s gaze snaps to him, but he doesn’t answer. His knuckles are white around the handle of the knife.

“Put it down,” Steve tells him, “please, Bucky, just—”

At his name, Bucky shudders.

“Please,” Steve repeats, pleads, begs. “Whatever happened, just—talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t,” Bucky says. He grinds the words out between clenched teeth, and the muscles in his neck stand out in thick cords.

“Why not?”

Again, Bucky shakes his head. “I have to go,” he says, his voice sharp and flat.

“No—” Steve’s moving forward, but of course it’s too late—he’s seen how fast Bucky is now, how strong, and by the time Steve’s taken two steps, Bucky is already out of the window again. He’s vanished completely in the time it takes Steve to cross the room and look out onto the fire escape. The street below is empty.

It’s impossible to sleep again, of course, and Steve spends the rest of the night alternately staring out of the window and pacing around the apartment. He keeps the window open and welcomes the cool breeze, which clears his head somewhat. His mind feels overfull, churning with too many thoughts and emotions to put in order.

On the one hand, he’s horrified. Whatever has happened to Bucky—whatever he’s done, whatever’s been done to him—it’s worse than Steve knows how to properly imagine. The look in his eyes. The motion of his limbs. The way he holds his body, like a weapon at the ready. Even his voice was strange. Steve wishes he’d been able to touch him, or to get him to say something more. Some kind of proof beyond the voice ringing in his ears. It hurt to have him so close, yet to see from his expression that he was still miles and miles away—almost as much as it hurts now, having him gone again.

But on the other hand, Steve is elated, because although Bucky’s gone, he was _here._ It’s an unexpected joy that sends his heart pounding at a breakneck pace: at last, an end to the doubting, to the fear. None of the old questions, like why any of this is happening or how it’s even possible for a person to exist in two places at once, seem to matter anymore. Bucky stood before him, he spoke to him, he knew him. Even if he didn’t know himself, it’s almost enough.

But he panics for a moment when he opens the door the next afternoon to see Peggy in the hall. “What happened?” he asks, his stomach dropping.

She looks stony-faced and doesn’t sit at his table this time, but leans against the counter. “Whatever trails we had were all cold. Either that, or they were false to begin with.”

“Oh.” It takes Steve several seconds to school his voice into an acceptable tone, trying to sound confused because he can’t quite manage disappointment. “You didn’t find anything?”

“Nothing.” Peggy shakes her head. Then she narrows her eyes at Steve. “What is it?”

“What?”

“You look very pale. And you’re just about murdering your suspenders.”

Steve looks down and sees that he’s gripping the strap very tightly with his left hand. He forces himself to let go. “I’m just tired,” he tells her. “And I’m—it’s all pretty weird.” This, at least, is the truth. He doesn’t want to lie to Peggy.

Still, he feels guilty when she believes him, her face clearing. She nods. “Well, I’ve been continuing my correspondence with Sergeant Barnes’s CO and you’ll be pleased to know that he is still in Europe.”

Biting back on a biddy, bewildered laugh, Steve just nods back. “Does he know?” he asks. “About all this?”

Peggy’s mouth twists to one side. “No,” she says, and it’s clear from her voice that she disapproves. “No, no one’s told him anything.”

“And you think someone should.”

She meets his eyes. There’s reluctance there, a distance that she seems to be trying to overcome. “I don’t contradict my superiors, as a rule,” she begins.

Steve stares at her and grins, glad to have a reason to let his guard down for a moment. “You’re the one who gave me a gun,” he says, too loudly.

“Hush,” she says, but the corner of her mouth twitches. “It’s much easier to ask forgiveness than permission, didn’t you know?” She shakes her head. “In any case, hardly anyone even knows about this entire situation, so sending something like this over radio is not an option.”

“I could put it in a letter,” Steve suggests, never mind the dozens of times he’s tried and failed.

“And tell him what?” Peggy demands. “That the assassin just happens to bear a strong resemblance to him? No, the idea is that we wait until we have some kind of real news.”

And that gives Steve pause. He’d forgotten for a moment, stupidly, that no one else knows it really is Bucky—he’d been inclined to ignore Peggy and send a letter the moment she left. But now he stops and thinks for a moment, just the way Bucky told him he ought to each time he came home bloody and bruised. He thinks that if he sends a letter like that—saying what he really knows, the awful truth of it, and all the questions that are still unanswered—Bucky won’t just be confused, he’ll be scared. He’ll think Steve’s lost his mind. Hell, Steve isn’t sure he wouldn’t be wrong.

Steve knows how Bucky worries. If he’s thinking about Steve, he’ll be as distracted as Steve has been thinking about Bucky. He’ll get himself shot or blown up, he’ll be so distracted. Steve’s seen it happen before—seen him take one look at Steve’s shiner and go get himself one to match. No. He won’t send a letter.

Peggy sees that much in his face, and by the way she lifts her chin, he can tell she knows something of what he was thinking. It’s unsettling, how well she knows him already. And then he thinks that it’s been months—more than a quarter of a year. He knows her as well as he’s ever known anyone, other than Bucky.

The weather turns quickly to autumn now, the sky taking on that strange blue that looks clear and hard, like candy, and the air developing a bite. Steve still leaves windows open, hoping that Bucky will come in through the fire escape or maybe even climb the wall or something, but he shivers whenever a breeze blows through the apartment. He takes to wearing Bucky’s sweaters, which are less threadbare than his own. They’re also much too big. Steve sits on the couch with sleeves rolled up twice and reads Bucky’s books, and sometimes the loneliness and worry is so big that he stares at the page without taking in a word.

 _Steve,_ the letter says, two weeks later, and the paper has a smear of mud over it.

_It’s still fucking raining, can you believe it? I’d kill for a New York winter, I swear. Or at least dry socks._

_Can’t tell you much, of course, and I know you know that, but I sure wish I could. Everything that happens here, I’m always turning my head to make some joke for you, or to see you rolling your eyes at me. It’s pathetic. But I thought you might like to know that even across an ocean you’re an annoying little shit._

_Anyways, I got your letter. Don’t give Nancy my goddamn books! At least let her look at your sketchbook if we’re all invading each other’s privacy now. Besides, she’s too young for Fitzgerald. Give her “Mr. Popper’s Penguins.” I think it’s on the top shelf._

_And you say you want a story? Well, I got one for you. Couple nights back, one of the only dry nights we’ve had, we were in our foxholes and we all had to shut up, keep our heads down and our eyes peeled. Except it was dark as that time the block lost power last spring, and we knew there was nobody around anyways because we weren’t far out from a town we’d just cleared. I kept thinking when I was lying there that you love to see the stars. We don’t have them like this back home—these are brighter. I didn’t know stars could be that bright. I can’t even describe it to you, you’ve gotta see it. And there are more of them. There are so many stars I can see where they’re far away and where they’re close, and the sky starts to look like a map with mountains and valleys. You can get lost looking at a sky like that._

_Hell, apparently I can get lost just writing about it. Call me dumb, but I guess if you can’t see it then I want to share it with you however I can. Anyways, the point is we were in our foxholes and apart from the stars there wasn’t a single light. I could hardly see the fellas in the next hole over. And we were supposed to keep quiet, except then I heard Rodriguez—real weird guy, he’s from Queens—give a yelp. I knew it was him because he’s got the deepest voice I’ve ever heard. We thought he’d pinched himself or maybe got a little too friendly with Mack in his foxhole. And hearing him squeal like that made everyone else start laughing. But of course we couldn’t make a noise._

_So there’s a few dozen of us who’d heard it, trying not to laugh and just snorting. We laughed even harder at everyone else trying to hold it in. And Rodriguez is insisting over it all that we’d better shut up, it’s not even funny. Except then Mack whispers to the guys next to them, and it spreads around that Rodriguez had been on his way back from the latrine and jumped in the wrong foxhole—where we’d shoved extra supplies—except some feral cat had got in there too. So he hopped back out as quick as he could and ran back to his own hole, but the cat wasn’t too happy and didn’t let him go. Apparently it was a fat one, too, because of all the scraps it got from the townspeople. He had to jump around and shake the damn thing off. Mack said it was like watching a puppet do the hokey-pokey. All we knew was that that one noise Rodriguez made was higher and more terrified than anything we ever expected to come out of his mouth._

_You wanted something to draw, too—I’d like to see you draw that. Big old Rodriguez—he’s heavy-set like Paul from the docks—tangoing with a cat and still trying to keep low to the ground. I’ll show Rodriguez whatever you come up with. I swear, to hear Mack tell it, the man’s got a future in a dance line._

_Reading over all that, I’m thinking it’s not so funny after all, or maybe it’s just because I was there. But you wouldn’t want to hear about the other stuff even if I was allowed to tell you. I know it doesn’t make a difference to you—but you ought to be glad you’re in Brooklyn. I know you’re chomping at the bit to get over here. But it’s not all cats and starry nights._

_I imagine I’d have heard if you’d been shot or something, since you own everything I do, technically, but you still better tell me if anything’s happened. I want to hear. I’d tell you if I lost an arm—so you tell me what’s going on. And yes, I’m going to end every letter this way. It doesn’t sit right with me, leaving you with a target painted on your back._

_Stop rolling your eyes, I know you’re doing it. And send me back a letter quick so I can show Rodriguez and laugh myself silly._

_Yours,_

_Buck_

_P. S. Sorry about the mud._

It just about drives Steve crazy, reading the words and brushing his hand over where Bucky’s pen dug into the paper, scraping some of the mud off the page, feeling it crumble to fine, dry dust under his thumbnail. The letter’s dated from the end of August. It gives Steve a queasy feeling in his stomach just thinking about it, about any of it—more and more, he just wants to know what the hell is going on.

He tries to focus on what anyone else would call the bright side. Bucky is safe enough to write, even able to laugh, to love the starlight. He wants Steve to draw for him. He thinks Steve’s an idiot. Steve clutches these truths to him like a shield, but they don’t change the fact that Bucky also spoke to him outside this very apartment not a month ago, with a lost look in his eyes and a knife in his hand.

And he certainly can’t write Bucky back now—no matter how much he wants to, how much better he’s sure he’d feel if he could just pour it out. He can’t hurt Bucky like that. And he still keeps coming back to the same problem he had at the beginning, which is a complete inability to even put any of this into words.

So he does the only thing he can do: he draws. He draws Rodriguez grappling with the cat in a dozen different forms until he’s got sheets and sheets covered with it and he starts to feel like da Vinci must have felt, the boy and the cat so tangled that they’re becoming each other, no longer able to tell where one begins and the other ends. And he draws Bucky in a foxhole in some dimly imagined forest, with a soft light shining down on his face, a smile tugging at his mouth, staring upwards.

But it hurts too much. So in the end he shoves the sketchbook between the couch cushions and goes to make two sandwiches. He leaves one on a plate on the fire escape.

It’s an idea he had after the first meeting, and of course he couldn’t tell Peggy and hardly wanted to admit it to himself. But there were shadows under Bucky’s eyes and hollows in his cheeks, despite how powerful his body was, so now Steve does what he can and hopes it makes some kind of impression. Like the way Bucky himself used to feed the alley-cats. In any case, whenever he goes out to check, the food he leaves is always gone.

He checks one night, a few days after reading the letter, and lingers on the fire escape, leaning against the railing. He’s not really hoping for Bucky to show up—it’s been weeks and he hasn’t made a reappearance—but it’s unusually warm for late September, and the afternoon rain has left a clean smell in the air for once. He breathes in deep.

“Steve.”

Steve chokes on nothing and coughs, staring around to find where the voice came from, but he can’t see anything. “Bucky?” he says when he’s recovered his voice. “Where are you?”

“Right here,” Bucky says, and there he is—speaking from the deepest part of the shadows, a few steps down from Steve, his body invisible except for the barest hint of an outline. “Don’t come closer.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Steve says. He’s not sure if it’s a lie or not. Everything inside him is whirling again, like desert sands stirred by a powerful wind. He itches to take a step forward. He’s frightened that doing so will shatter this fragile illusion. “Are you,” he says. “Are you okay?”

There’s a long silence, so long that Steve starts to wonder if Bucky’s managed to leave without him seeing or hearing. Then Bucky says, in one gruff syllable, “Yeah.”

“Good,” Steve says, heaves a sigh. “That’s good.” He senses, though, that tonight he won’t be able to get Bucky to come inside. “What’ve you been doin’, Buck?” He stops, remembering too late the way Bucky seemed to hate hearing his name the last time they spoke. But there’s no such reaction now. “Where’d you go?” he asks.

Again, the hesitation. “You’ll tell them,” Bucky says.

“No,” Steve says at once, “no, Bucky, of course not—I’d _never—”_ He leans forward, reaches out unthinkingly, only to freeze when Bucky moves in the darkness.

“I said don’t.”

“Sorry,” Steve breathes. He pulls his hand back and leans on the railing again, partly clutching it for support as his knees seem to be giving out. His heart pounds. “What happened?” he asks as he did the last time.

“Thanks for the food,” Bucky counters. “And the smokes.”

“You like ‘em?” Steve asks.

“Can’t smoke ‘em,” Bucky says. “They’re—not for me. But I remember them.”

Steve frowns. “What do you mean they’re not for you? Of course they’re for you, I got ‘em from your—”

“I mean.” Bucky breathes out sharp. “It’s been a long time. I don’t—I wasn’t—they’re not mine anymore.” His voice softens again. “But thank you.”

There are still a million questions pressing at Steve’s tongue, but he swallows them down. “Sure thing.” Someone laughs in the street below, and Steve glances down. “Should you—is it safe for you to be here? You know they’re watchin’ out for you.”

Bucky huffs out a laugh. “And I’m watchin’ them. I’m better at it than they are. Don’t worry.” There’s a funny little lurch at the end of the sentence, like he wants to say something else, or maybe like he has to stop himself from saying it. “Don’t worry,” he repeats. “They won’t catch me.”

“Are you safe?” Steve asks, automatic, before he thinks that maybe it’s a stupid question. He’s seen Bucky fight off a dozen men on his own. He’s fine.

And Bucky isn’t laughing now, but when he speaks it’s clear that he’s smiling, just a little. “It’s under control,” he says. “Anyway you’d think it’d be me worrying about you and not the other way around.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, “except it’s you who’s putting me in danger in the first place.” All at once he feels cold again. “Can you just tell me why?” he asks. “Or tell me—anything at all?” There’s no response. “Are you there?” he asks, his feet frozen where they are.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says. He makes a frustrated noise. “I don’t know _how.”_

“Well,” Steve says, “that’s okay, Bu—that’s all right.” He rubs his hands over his face. “You don’t have to tell me if you—if it’s so hard. As long as you stick around, all right?”

He waits longer for an answer this time, but it never comes. Eventually he takes a tentative step forward, and when nothing moves in the shadows, he knows Bucky’s gone. Steve sits down on the step where he was, even though it’s getting chilly now and feels like it might rain again. He stays there, not quite disappointed, but bereft, which is a common feeling these days but is strong enough in this moment to pierce right to Steve’s heart.

“This is it,” Peggy says, standing in the kitchen a week later. “Actually, everyone on surveillance duty has already left, so I suppose you’re already free.”

“And there’s no one following me this time?” Steve checks.

“No.” There’s a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “Do try not to let it go to your head.”

Steve chuckles and glances at the window automatically—it’s raining again, pouring, so that it feels more like twilight than mid-afternoon. He wonders if Peggy will think he’s afraid that something will happen to him now. He isn’t, of course not, because despite ample evidence to the contrary he can’t bring himself to believe that Bucky would ever hurt him.

But when he looks back to her, there’s no judgment in her eyes. “I was wondering,” she says, “before we part ways and hopefully never have to deal with this again—have you given any more thought to Dr. Erskine’s project? He’s still very interested in recruiting you.”

“I’m flattered,” Steve says dryly. Then he sighs. “But—I’m sorry, Peggy, I just don’t think that’s the job for me.”

She blinks at him with frank skepticism. “When we last discussed it, you seemed quite interested in the idea of helping the war effort however you could.”

“I know,” Steve says, “and I am.” He flushes, hating to lie, not knowing another way around it. He can’t tell her that nothing will get him to leave this little corner of Brooklyn as long as Bucky knows where to find him. “I just—look.” He grits his teeth. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s like you said—hopefully we never have to deal with this again. I just want to forget it ever happened.”

“Hm.” Peggy nods slowly. “Well, I can’t say I blame you.” She moves toward the door.

“Do you want the gun back?” Steve asks, stumbling over himself a little in a hurry to get the words out.

She grins, suddenly, her eyes crinkling in amusement. “No,” she says, “you keep it. There’s no point in the SSR hanging around, but you may well have need of a weapon.”

“Right,” Steve says, “because I’m still liable to get shot at.”

“Yes, that,” she agrees seriously, “but also because you can probably find a way to fight someone in an empty room.”

Steve laughs. “Bucky always said that, too.”

Her smile widens. “I see what he saw in you, though, underneath the—bad temper.”

Shaking his head, Steve holds open the door for her. “I appreciate it all, by the way,” he says, feeling like anything he says at this point is paltry, insufficient to the point of rudeness. “Everything you’ve done. I mean,” he snorts, “I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

“Yes,” she says, unflinching, “you would. But I don’t mind.” She hesitates for a moment, rocking infinitesimally on the balls of her feet, then steps backwards into the hallway. “In any case, I doubt we’ve truly seen the last of each other. You strike me as a magnet for trouble.”

This time when she’s gone, though he’s just as free as he was a month and a half ago, Steve doesn’t leave the building. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to wait, especially because Peggy has informed him that his position with Mr. Wu still stands and he doesn’t want to risk losing that stroke of good luck—but it’s hard not to imagine Bucky showing up again now that there are no guards to evade. And Steve does imagine it, several times an hour, with a fierce and tangible longing.

But he’s still unprepared when he walks back into the apartment after visiting Mrs. O’Reilly that evening and sees a familiar shape standing in the doorway to the bedroom, silhouetted against the purpling dusk outside. “Oh,” Steve says, stopping dead, then turning to shut the door behind him. He takes a moment with his back turned to straighten his spine, control the flutter of his heart. He turns back around. “Hi,” he says, and turns on the light.

He sees Bucky flinch and regrets it. But then he sees how Bucky is standing, one hand—not the metal one—gripping the door frame with white knuckles, his eyes staring wide. He takes a breath and Steve can see his chest shudder with it. “I’m not,” he says, “I’m not—him.”

“Yes, you are,” Steve says, because he doesn’t think he can bear to hear Bucky say that one more time. It rips him apart. “You’re—God. I know you.” He figures out how to move his feet and walks forward, over to the stack of books by the couch. He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him but he ignores it, just reaches down and picks up the most battered volume, pulls the photo from its place between the pages. He takes a few steps toward Bucky, holding it out.

But Bucky doesn’t take it. He glances from the little picture to Steve’s face. Steve can see him swallow and clutch the door frame tighter.

So Steve goes over to the table and lays the picture flat upon it, then steps back. “That’s you,” he says, “I promise.”

After a few more seconds of doubtful, mistrusting hesitation, Bucky releases the door frame. He takes one halting step towards the table, then another, and stares down at the photograph. His hand twitches toward his belt, and Steve notices for the first time that there are still weapons tucked there, what look like knives and guns and other things he has no names for. “I know,” Bucky says, still gazing down at his own face, smiling and frozen and even a little crinkled from how many places Steve has stuffed it since he left. He looks up at Steve, who sees with jarring clarity the difference between that picture and the man who’s standing in front of him. It’s as if he’s aged a thousand years.

“I know,” Bucky says again, in a voice like scraping, rusting metal. “I’m not him anymore. I can’t—I don’t know him. But I _was—”_ His face contorts and his hand moves fully to clutch one of the guns. “I think I was,” he says. It’s barely a whisper.

“I promise, you were,” Steve tells him. He takes a cautious step forwards, and when Bucky doesn’t draw on him, he rounds the table and stands right in front of him. It’s the closest they’ve been since Bucky got on that bus. Only a few inches away, he can see how every muscle in Bucky’s body is tensed, how his face is haggard. The skin on his jaw is scraped and red. “Bucky,” Steve breathes, and he sees in Bucky’s eyes a flare of recognition. Encouraged, he reaches up a hand to that scraped spot on his face. He doesn’t touch—he knows there are limits—but his fingers ghost so close to the skin that he can feel the warmth of Bucky’s body: real, solid, so very close. “What happened?” he asks. He means the scrape.

But Bucky’s eyes darken like he takes it to mean everything, from the tension between them to the scar on Steve’s shoulder and the fingers that pulled the trigger. His eyes darken, and right away, like an instinct, he says, “Good fuckin’ question.” And then his eyes go wide and transparent in shock, like he can’t believe the words came out of his own mouth. Steve smiles, tremulously, because he knows now, this is all the proof he’ll ever need—those words belong to Bucky. It’s him. And he could swear that in this moment, this strange soldier—Bucky—knows it too.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come find me on tumblr](http://www.blanketed-in-stars.tumblr.com/) and you can find Audrey [here!](http://www.brightbluedot.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Comments are love!


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